Black Twins, Dark Pasts
by SupernaturalAngel
Summary: Sirius's halfBulgarian twin daughters start Hogwarts. When his identity is revealed will they believe he is a murderer like everyone else? SemiAU. Canon during PoA. Appearances By Lupin, Snape. UPDATE: Sirius returns, they meet him for the first time.
1. Letters, Twins

Note: This is a very old fanfic that I never finished, which I found and have edited a bit, and added on to. If any of you have read it before, you should probably scan it over. I've changed some characters added and taken out some little details and situations, and hopefully improved it a bit.

I look forward to hearing from you, let me know what you think!

"Mom!" A girl said in Bulgarian, eyes wide.

"What?" A woman with the same colored hair, except straight, turned and looked at her daughter.

"There's an owl outside the window. I think it's foreign."  
The woman nodded, turned to the window, opened it, and grabbed the brown owl. To its leg were tied three parchment letters.

_Miss Eleonora Ivanova_

_Miss Sophia Black_

_Miss Vieara Black_

No one had addressed her daughters by these names in a long time. She knew where the letters were from immediately. The woman's hands shook as she opened the letter with her name on it.

_Miss Ivanova,  
_it read,

_I am pleased to inform you that your daughters have been accepted to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. While your local school is Rosalind, we have made an exception and decided that the best school for the girls is Hogwarts, considering all the circumstances. Professor Dumbledore wants me to add that he thinks that your kids will enjoy it very much here. Please consider our offer carefully._

_Deputy Headmistress,  
Minerva McGonagall_

_PS Harry Potter is currently attending the school and will begin his second year on the first of September._

A cloud of worry seemed to pass over the woman's dark eyes and she turned to hide from her excited eleven year old daughters. They had already read their standard first year letters and booklists.

"Why does it say Sophia Black on my envelope?" Sophia asked curiously. Her name was Sophia Ivanova, the same last name her sister and mother both shared.

"Oh, it's just a mistake." Her mother answered in what she hoped was a confident voice.

"When can we buy our school supplies Mum?" Vieara asked, jumping up and down in her spot. Going to school was exciting enough, but going to a foreign school was even better!

"Um, well, how about next week?" She hoped her voice didn't shake too much. A week should be enough to let her get used to the idea of letting her sheltered daughters attend the school she and Sirius had once attended. Actually, come to think of it, a lifetime wouldn't be enough to get used to such an idea.

The identical hazel eyes wore identical expressions of disappointment.

"But why can't we go tomorrow?" Sophia asked, her voice filled to the brim with plea.

"I'm busy tomorrow. I don't stay home all day like you two." Her voice was harsher than she expected. The girls looked at each other in surprise. Her voice only became harsh when they asked her questions about their father.

"O . . . Okay." They whispered softly in unison and fled outside.  
They swiftly climbed on their favorite apple tree and chewed thoughtfully on the not-yet-ripe fruit. It was actually quite sour, but they didn't mind.

"But why aren't we going to Rosalind like everyone else we know? Do you know where this school is anyway?" Vieara asked her sister. Her sister always seemed to know everything that could be found in a book.

"I think it's in England." Sophia answered, chewing thoughtfully. Vieara waited patiently for her to continue. She knew that Sophia would give her a lot more information, if she didn't interrupt. "Um, the Headmaster's name is Albus Dumbledore, and the infamous Harry Potter goes there. It is believed to be the largest magical school in Europe. And they have a huge Forbidden Forest filled with all kinds of interesting creatures surrounding it."

Vieara swallowed before replying. "Do you think that's where our father went to school?"

Sophia munched thoughtfully. "Probably."

"I hope we can at least find out his name! Why do you think Mom always gets so upset when we ask her about him?"

Sophia shrugged and jumped off the tree. "Let's go get Alex and go swim in the river."

"You know you shouldn't swim after eating!" Vieara teased and jumped out of the tree.

Sophia laughed. "Race you!"

A week later, they arrived by Floo powder at Diagon Alley. Eleonora flinched inwardly at the sight of the familiar buildings. She felt like Elly again, the young pregnant girl she had been when she'd left London for her native Bulgaria. Her new nickname had become Nora, and Ellie had been gone. Until now, it seemed. She was face to face again with the buildings she had come to know like the back of her own hand during the summer of her pregnancy. There was the bench she sat on while the ice-cream dripped down her front. The whole place was embedded with once happy memories now tinged with bitterness. The twins sprinted from store window to store window, yelping excitedly like puppies.

Elly breathed slowly until she felt like she had at least some of her emotions reined. She tried not to show the pain she felt, at least for the twins' sake. The girls could see that their mother wasn't as happy as she should have been. But they didn't push their luck, for fear of another outburst.

When everything on their school lists was in their shopping bags, they looked at their mother, expecting to go home. But she felt guilty about not being as excited as she should have been and tried to make it up to them.

"How about you pick out some makeup? You know, for some special occasions at Hogwarts." The twins grinned and nodded, thrilled with the permission to wear makeup. Vieara picked out body and hair glitter, and a bubblegum pink lip gloss, Sophia decided on black eyeliner and hot pink eye shadow, and black and pink nail varnishes.

On September first, they traveled to London by Floo powder again. This time to King's Cross. And to Platform 9 and ¾.

The two girls were so excited, they couldn't keep still. As soon as they crossed the barrier, they loaded their trunks on the train and quickly said good bye to their mother.

"Now, be good girls. Especially you Vieara, you hear?" Vieara nodded angelically, but there was a mischievous glint in her eye. "Um, study hard, and write about all the cute boys you meet!" They all laughed and Elly hugged her daughters. _Oh god . . . I see so much of him in them . . ._ Her eyes welled up with tears. She wiped them, glad that the twins had already boarded the train.

"Are you letting them go for the first time?" Asked a pleasant red headed woman. Eleonora nodded. The woman continued. "I have seven and trust me it doesn't get much easier. This is my last one. And my only girl."  
She pointed to a red headed little girl who was trailing after a girl with thick brown hair.

"I'm Molly Weasley. That's my daughter Ginny, and one of my son Ron's best friends: Hermione Granger." She looked around, eyes searching the crowds of kids. " my son and his other best friend, Harry Potter, seem to have vanished." She told Elly, who took a sharp breath. Lily and James' son!

Molly Weasley grinned. "Yup. He's THE Harry Potter. Real nice boy. But those Muggles he's living with, humph, trash! They treat like he's got some fatal contagious disease! Horrible to him! Poor boy."

Elly struggled with all her might not to change the impression on her face. A few tears slid down her cheek, despite her efforts but she wiped them quickly.

"I have twins. Vieara and Sophia over there. I'm worried about them. I hope they don't get into too much mischief. Especially Vieara. She plays jokes on everyone who crosses her path. Sophia's quieter, but Vieara drags her into the schemes too." Elly explained.

"Really? Twins? I have twins too. Boys, fourth year. Identical to the last freckle. Worst troublemakers I've seen since James Potter and Sirius Black. Hope yours and mine don't meet. They'd probably blow the school up."

Elly forced herself to laugh, then quickly said good bye and left. _This is what I was afraid of; I'm being reminded of him every single second._


	2. Hoggy Warty Hogwarts

On the train, the twins were busy trying to find an empty compartment. No such luck. Almost every single one was filled. At last, they found two seats near the back of the train.

"I think they're first years too." Sophia said to Vieara in Bulgarian. Vieara nodded and took a seat next to a pretty white-blond girl.

"Foreigners!" The girl whispered loudly, so that everyone within two meters could hear.

"Do you have a problem with that?" Vieara asked in perfect English, without the slightest hint of accent. She stood back up and mentally made a note to thank her mother for speaking to them in English half of the time.

The blond girl stood up too. "I am _Adrianne Malfoy_ and don't you dare give me attitude!" Her icy blue eyes flashed dangerously. If Vieara lived in England and knew of the Malfoys, there was a slim chance that she might have sat down. But she didn't know. And she wasn't frightened, or impressed, or whatever this girl wanted her to be.

"So what? And I am _Sophia Ivanova_." Sophia jumped in, glaring just as dangerously at the stranger as her sister.

"And I'm supposed to care because . . ." Vieara said at the same time, in a bored voice. If she could do one thing properly, it was annoy people. She seemed to know everyone's buttons (and wasn't afraid to push them) as soon as she met a person.

Adrianne was surprised not to have her name recognized. _These foreigners sure are stupid_, she thought, _they don't know who they're messing with._

"Why, my _second year_ brother is right next door."

"So you're saying, basically, that you can't even fight your own battles. Not that I consider this a battle. " Sophia retorted. Vieara might be the schemer, but Sophia was quicker on the comebacks.

Adrianne was expected a variety of responses but that wasn't one of them. She stared at the twins, who were now gathering their luggage and preparing to move it to the next cart, openmouthed. At that precise moment Draco Malfoy walked in from the other door.  
Vieara turned, seeing that he looked like a male copy of Adrianne. "You better teach your sister manners. She doesn't seem to know how to greet foreigners. Or fight her own battles either!"

The older Malfoy was as surprised as the younger one, and didn't think of a reply until the twins were well into the next compartment.

The twins finally found two empty seats in a compartment with . . . another pair of identical twins! Older boys.

"Hi!" The girls said in unison.

The redheaded boys looked up from the piece of paper they were scribbling on to catch sight of the other pair of twins.

"Wow cool. You're twins too. I'm George Weasley, and this is my brother Fred." One of them said, grinning widely.

"Hey! You forgot to introduce me! I'm their sister Ginny. Are you in your first year too?"

"Hi. I'm Sophia Ivanova and . . ."

"I'm Vieara Ivanova. And it's our . . ."

" first year at Hogwarts too!"

"Hey what have you got there? Are you trying to improve the Fillbister Firecrackers? You should try adding a Dung Bomb at the end. It spreads the smell twice as far." Vieara took a seat next to Fred and pulled both objects out to demonstrate.

Fred looked at George and said in an exaggerated disappointed tone. "I believe we are no longer Hogwarts' only twin terrorists."

A few hours later, the train arrived at Hogwarts. The two pairs of twins separated unwillingly. They had planned to improve mischief aiding charms and potions to their personal use. Vieara was the one talking to Fred and George. Sophia talked mostly to Ginny. Once in a while, however, she would stick her head into the other conversation and offer improvements.

"Wow!" Vieara whispered, awestruck, her eyes wide at the sight of the enormous castle.

"Firs' ears this way!" A huge man yelled and pointed to the rows of boats. Vieara and Sophia sat in one of the boats. A black haired girl sat across from them. Next to her sat a boy with tanned skin and sun bleached blond hair.

"Hullo!" They said.

"Hullo," The twins greeted them. "I'm Sophia and this is my sister Vieara."

"I'm Leah. But call me Lee, okay?"

"I'm Kellen."

"Which House do you want to be in?" Kellen asked. "I want to be in Gryffindor!"  
"Ravenclaw or Gryffindor." Lee said.  
"Houses?" The twins asked in unison.  
"You don't know about the Houses?" Kellen gaped at them.  
They shrugged. "We're from Bulgaria. We don't know much about Hogwarts."

By the time Kellen had explained the concept of the Houses, they'd arrived at the huge wooden doors. They were then led into a huge room with a ceiling identical to the sky outside.  
"This is the Great Hall." Kellen whispered.  
A very severe looking teacher placed an old hat on a three legged stool. "Aster, Calliope."  
A very frightened pigtailed girl stepped forward. She slowly sat on the stool and pulled the hat on. It almost instantly shouted:  
"GRYFFINDOR!" One of the tables applauded wildly.  
"Aucoder, Christopher."  
"RAVENCLAW!"  
"Black, Sophia."  
"Not again, they got my name wrong again!" Sophia muttered, stepping up to the stool. She carefully placed the frayed hat on her head, and instantly heard a squeaky voice.  
"Hum … smart, hardworking, talented. Ravenclaw might be good for you. Ah, but I put both of your parents in Gryffindor." Sophia gasped. Her mom had gone to school here too? "I think you'll do good there too, so I guess it will be . . .  
GRYFFINDOR!"  
"Black, Vieara."  
Vieara was already sitting on the stool and had placed the hat on her head. _You better put me in with my sister or I'll cut you up in pieces!_

"Not too friendly, I see! Fiercely proud, smart, mischievous. You are a little copy of your father. Just as stubborn, at least. But yes, it will suit you fine that . . .  
GRYFFINDOR!"  
"Creevey, Colin."  
Another Gryffindor.  
Vieara's eyes were quite wide when she sat between Fred and Sophia. "It said I'm a smaller copy of our father!" she whispered to her sister.  
Sophia answered, " It said that both of our parents were in Gryffindor!"  
"Hey, I thought you last name was Ivanova!" Fred interrupted.  
"It is." Sophia confirmed absentmindedly. "They made a mistake. Again!"  
She looked at the hat which now sat on Adrianne Malfoy's head. It barely touched her head before it announced her a Slytherin.

"Mersion, Leah."

"RAVENCLAW!"

"Morris, Kellen."

The girls saw Lee hand the hat over to Kellen.

"GRYFFINDOR!"

The twins cheered with the rest of the Gryffindors. Kellen saw them and sat down across from Vieara. He had a wide toothy smile on his face and his chest stuck out proudly.

"It barely touched my head when it said that I should be in Gryffindor. Actually, it said, the only place that suits you is . . . and then it shouted Gryffindor."

Meanwhile, the hat had just announced Ginny Weasley a Gryffindor too. She sat next to Kellen, across from Sophia. She sighed with relief. "Thank goodness I'm in Gryffindor. My whole family has been in here!" Fred and George congratulated all of the new first years heartily, but were interrupted by Professor Dumbledore.

The twins stared at the old man, not hearing a word he said. He looked delicate with age, his long white hair reaching past his waist, but his eyes . . . There was something about his eyes. They sparkled. So this was the great wizard Albus Dumbledore.

He finished his speech, waved his hand and suddenly the tables were set and piled high with delicacies. Everyone dug in eagerly and the conversation died instantly.

Almost an hour later, the prefects lead their houses into the dormitories. Sophia and Vieara stumbled and yawned their way through the portrait hole.

"Remember the password. Higgleboo." The twins giggled at the password and tried to tuck it into a corner of their tired minds as they stumbled up to the girls' dorms. They changed into pajamas with eyelids half closed and tumbled into their beds.

_I have to go to Dumbledore and correct our names . . ._

It was Sophia's last thought before sleep had settled within her body completely.


	3. Daddy Dearest

"Excuse me, Professor?" Vieara tugged softly at Dumbledore's robes. He turned.

"Yes? Miss Black is it?"

"No actually, it's not. I want to correct it. You seem to have made a mistake when it comes to Sophia's and my names. See, our last name is Ivanova."

His eyes clouded for a second. When he spoke, it was in a very soft voice. "Can you two please come into my office and I'll try to explain everything?"

Vieara shrugged, then nodded and pulled Sophia's elbow. They followed Dumbledore to a gargoyle.

"Fizzing Whizbee." He said. The statue jumped aside, revealing a corridor. They followed the professor into his office and sat down in the two chairs which faced his desk.

"Did your mother ever tell you who your father is?"

They shook their heads solemnly.

"His name is Sirius Black." He waited for some sort of reaction. But the girls sat still as statues, waiting to hear more.

"They went to Hogwarts together, your parents. Your mother transferred here in her fourth year from Rosalind. They were the biggest troublemakers I'd seen! Inseparable. Except when they fought. Thankfully, it wasn't often, but when they did, she ended up with green hair and cat ears, he with a pig snout and tail."

The twins laughed. _Why didn't I think of a pig snout?_ Vieara thought. It would go well with Adrianne's blue eyes.

"Anyway, your mother got pregnant with you just at the end of school. Your parents' best friends, Lily and James Potter were expecting a baby too. He was born in July and named Harry Potter."

The girls gasped.

"Voldemort was after him. There was a prophecy that predicted his downfall, and he thought it pertained to either Harry or you two. So he tried to kill the three of you before you could be a threat to him. He began with Harry. You two weren't born yet when Voldemort attacked the Potters and met his downfall in Harry. After the Potters found out that Voldemort was after them, they wanted to have the Fidelius Charm performed. It would hide them completely. The secret of their whereabouts would be placed inside of one person. Unless that person told Voldemort where they were, he could stare at them without actually seeing them. Since your father was their best friend, naturally…"

Vieara began to nod slowly. "He was that person for them."

"Secret Keeper. The person is called a Secret Keeper. Yes. He was. And they were attacked less than a week after the spell was finished."

"He told." Sophia said numbly.

"Yes, and the next day, another of the Potters' friends tracked him down and tried to take his revenge on your father." Dumblebore grew quieter and more solemn. "Sirius Black killed him and thirteen others. He has been in prison, in Azkaban, since. I'm sure your mother only tried to protect you. But I believe that you have a right to know who your father is. But who he was does not change who you are."

"It said I was a smaller copy of him."

"Excuse me?"

"The hat. The Sorting Hat." Vieara stared at him without seeing.

"But he wasn't only what he became in those last few months. He was smart too. He had a sense of humor, he had many many charming, alluring qualities."

"Sure. And he was a great liar, apparently."

"So my name is Sophia Black?"

"You names are Sophia Artemisa Pandora Black and Vieara Audacia Marauda Black."  
"So, we have to change our names?" Sophia asked.

"Well, you don't have to. You could if you wanted to."

"No thanks." Vieara said, eyes still wide with disbelief.

Dumbledore nodded. "But I have something from your father. For you two."

They looked at him curiously. He went to a large cabinet and pulled out a package. It was addressed: To my daughters, from Sirius Black.

Sophia took it, thanked Dumbledore and herded her sister out of the office. They silently went up to their dormitory and into their room. They still had twenty minutes of breakfast left before their first class of the day.

"You open it." Vieara muttered.

Sophia untied the string and unwrapped the package. It contained three books and a notebook. She gazed at the covers. A Nursery of Fairy Tales, The Pantheon: An Idiot's Guide to Mythology, Troublemakers Throughout the Ages, and a plain old black notebook with a few pages torn out. She opened the notebook first, expecting a journal or some sort of diary. Instead, writing appeared on the first page.

**The Infamous Marauder Sirius Black (aka Padfoot)  
Presents **

**Double Trouble: **

Sophia flipped the page.

**Table of Contents**

Part I: My Life

Chapter 1 Before Hogwarts

Chapter 2 First Year

Chapter 3 Second Year

Chapter 4 Third year: Remus' Secret

Chapter 5 Fourth Year: your Mommy!

Chapter 6 Fifth Year: Meet The Blacks (My Wonderful Family)

Chapter 7 Sixth Year: Record Number of Double Detentions is Broken

Chapter 8 Seventh Year: You! (Are you old enough for this?)

Chapter 9 Diagon Alley

Chapter 10

Part II: The Guide

Chapter 1 Tools of the Trade

Chapter 2 Sneaking Out

Chapter 3 Mischief Aiding Spells and Charms

Chapter 4 Hogwarts and its Grounds

Chapter 5 Good Cover Ups and Excuses  


Sophia turned the page again. By now, Vieara was fascinated and looked over her shoulder. But the page was blank. Come to think of it, it didn't say any page numbers in the table of contents. Vieara looked puzzled. She stared at the notebook.

Sophia gasped suddenly. "Oh my, it's two minutes until Potions!" They hurried off and followed the rest of the Gryffindors to the dungeons. They sat down next to each other while the teacher ignored the class completely. When the hand of the clock turned to nine, he stood.

"This is Potions, one of the most practical and hardest areas of magic. With the right potions, you can change your appearance, kill, poison, or heal. There will be no fooling around in this class! Understand? I warned you!"

The class nodded silently, a bit frightened.

"Aster, Calliope?"

The pigtailed girl raised her hand slowly. Her murky brownish green eyes looked wide with fear.

"Black, Sophia?" His eyes glittered with hatred.

She raised her hand.

"Black, Vieara?" His face showed pure loathing. "My, my! Two of you."

That Potions class was as bad as bad could get. Snape picked on them when they didn't know the answers, and made fun of them when they made a mistake. On the other hand, he treated the Slytherins, who they were taking classes with, quite differently. He especially seemed to favor Adrianne Malfoy. But what seemed to anger him more than Vieara's sharp glares and mumbled curses, was Sophia quietly ignoring of his insults. When she was the only one who produced a decent potion, he looked as if he might combust of suppressed rage.


	4. Ginny

Sophia became friends with Ginny. Vieara, on the other hand, could never be seen without Kellen. And both twins were often seen with the Weasley twins, playing jokes on everyone.

"Why is your last name Ivanova, and Sophia's Black?" Ginny asked Vieara.

"Because Ivanova is my mother's last name. I kept it. Sophia changed hers to Black when she found out who our father is. His last name is Black." Vieara answered, not quite looking at Ginny, with a note of finality in her tone. Ginny got the hint.

"I wonder why Thalia blushed when I asked her if she wasn't hot in that cloak of hers." Sophia whispered to her sister the next day, in Defense Against The Dark Arts. Professor Lockhart was babbling (more like bragging) about the time he'd defeated a mummy in less than fifteen minutes.

"Yeah. It's weird. And she looked uncomfortable when I mentioned Ireland and fairies and elves, didn't she?" Vieara added.

"And she never takes off that cloak. Like, ever! She only takes it off after pulling the drapes around her bed." Sophia whispered.

"Miss Black! Would you mind telling the class what exactly you're discussing?"

"Oh, she was just telling me how she admires your courage. You know, facing a mummy without a wand and all." Vieara said, smiling sweetly at Lockhart. Sophia pretended to look embarrassed, lowering her eyes and smiling slightly.

The class snickered, but Lockhart looked absolutely flattered. Vieara even dared to blow a bubble with her Droobles' Best Blowing Gum (in her favorite flavor, Bubbles'n Bats). And let me tell you, when Drooble says his gum blows best, he doesn't lie. Droobles' bubbles are as big as a human head. The good news is, that they don't pop often. The bad news is, that just then, it did.

And a teacher, even one as self-centered as Lockhart, notices if one of his pupils' face is covered in sticky black bubble gum. And so does the class. It was howling with laughter.

Vieara paused for a second, in thought. "Well, I was going to pluck my eyebrows anyway." She announced, shrugging, with an impish grin. Then she raised her hand.

"May I be excused? Some gum seems to have found its way to my face."

"Don't." Sophie said with a smile. She took her wand off her desk, and pointed at Vieara's face. "Removius!"

The gum unstuck from her skin and hairs painlessly, and curled itself into a small ball in midair. The class stared at both girls, amazed.

"Thanks!" Vieara grinned. "I really have to learn that one!"

"Detention, Miss Black. No chewing gum in class." Professor Lockhart declared, clearly irritated by Sophie's little spell.

"Oh, Professor! But I was looking forward to reading your biography tonight! I'm so disappointed. I won't get a chance to find out about all of your heroic adventures." Vieara tried to save herself.

Lockhart actually bought it! His face softened and he smiled a bit. "Well, well. No need to deny you of that pleasure." The class couldn't help but snicker again.

On Halloween, Ms. Norris was found Petrified. The twins agreed not to use their Double Trouble Guide just yet. It was much too dangerous.

Sophia wrote to their father in the back of the notebook often, and loved how he answered. Always gentle, at the same time a bit strict, but with a sense of humor and mischief. He often asked about Vieara and their mother. She never said much, just that they were too busy to write.

He asked about Harry Potter too, once. Sophia was surprised.

I don't really know him. I've only seen him in the halls and in the common room. He's always with my friend Ginny's brother Ron and a girl named Heather or Hermione or something. She's a real know-it-all. And Harry seems, a little, well, self absorbed.

She wrote. She told him about Ginny. How pale she was. Jumpy and nervous.

Unlike Sophia, Vieara had no interest whatsoever in what her father had to say. She completely ignored the front and back of the notebook, only reading the troublemaking guide in the middle. Most of their first year at Hogwarts was rather uneventful for them, but many strange things happened to others in the school. Ginny seemed to change a lot toward the end of the year, but by then it was discovered that Lord Voldemort's memory had possessed her and a giant basilisk had tried to kill her. But she had been rescued heroically by Harry Potter, and the whole matter was eventually forgotten as the twins readied to return to Bulgaria that summer.


	5. My Dear Sophie

The first day of summer, the day they would leave Hogwarts, was warm and breezy. The windows of the dormitory had been left open overnight and warm winds were gently smoothing the girls' faces. Sophia yawned and with one swift kick threw the sheet off of herself. She propped herself up on her hands and looked around. Ginny was sleeping facing away from her, her red hair on fire from the rays of sun that were playing with it. Vieara was lying in bed reading Troublemakers Throughout the Ages, munching on a chocolate frog.

Sophia pulled her hair up messily and mouthed to Vieara. "Gimme a frog!" Vieara teasingly pretended not to understand for a moment, them threw over the sweet. Sophia pulled out the black notebook, and busily began writing to her father while Vieara returned to her book.

_Sirius?_ She wrote.

**Mm Hmm?**

_It's the last day of our first year here. I feel so lonely. I don't want to go back to Bulgaria. Vieara will be having her friend Kellen over, Ginny is going back to her home, and I'm afraid mum will be sad just like before we left. I'm afraid everything I say will upset her. And Vieara and I disagree on a really important thing, so I can't talk to her about it . . ._

She failed to mention that the subject of the disagreement was him, but as her writing disappeared, a lone tear slid down her face, and dropped onto the paper. Curiously it did not make it wet, but rather seemed to be absorbed just like the ink. There was a pause, then her father's handwriting slowly began to appear.

**Please don't cry, my Sophie, please. You know that I'll always be here for you, here in this notebook, forever. I know it isn't as good as a real father, in flesh and all, but I'm terribly sorry, I just can't change that. As for you mom, is she sad because of me? What do you need to talk to Vieara about? Tell me . . .**

_I can't. I can't talk to you, and I can't figure out why mum didn't tell us about you a long time ago. I miss you. Can you miss something you've never really had?_

**I suppose you can, because I miss you and Vieara and I've never even met you. Why didn't you mum tell you two about me?**

_I suppose it's because of what you did. . ._

**What do you mean, what did I do?**

_You don't know? Don't you remember? The murders?_

**What murders?!**

_Oh, I can't tell you, but how can you not know?_

**I am only a memory, Sophie, the memory of Sirius Black at eighteen. I am locked here, in this notebook. I am not the Sirius Black of the present.**

Sophia gasped. So she wasn't speaking to her father, in prison, she was speaking to his memory, locked into a notebook at the age of eighteen. Locked innocent, before the murders, before the betrayal. She could not ask him why, why he'd done it all.

"What?" Vieara had looked up at Sophia's gasp.

"Noth-thing." Sophia stuttered. Her sister returned to her reading

**What has happened to me, Sophie?**

_I can't really, I can't tell you. I'm sorry._

**But you know. Am I dead?**

_No._

**Then why did you grow up without me? Did I abandon you?**

_No._

**Why Sophie? I need to know. Please . . .**

_You went to prison before I was born._

**Prison? Whatever for? Was I framed? What did I do?**

_I'm s-sorry. I can't. I can't._

Sophia shut the notebook with a silent sob, licked her left index finger, which was half covered in chocolate, and announced in a shaky voice that she was going to take a shower. Vieara never looked up, and the others didn't stir. She let her tears loose in the shower, where they blended into the water and washed down the drain. She wasn't even sure why she was crying. Except she knew she just wanted to be normal, a normal girl with and mother who didn't burst into tears or rage at the first mention of their father. A girl whose father was not a mass murder in the scariest prison, a girl whose father hadn't betrayed his wife and best friends. And now, she couldn't even demand answers. Because the father she'd been talking to was a boy barely out of school, clueless to the terrible doom that lay before him.

And then there was Vieara who refused to talk about him at all, and when she did, she simply called him a bastard, a traitor bastard who didn't love them, and therefore deserved nothing in return. But Sophia disagreed. There was something missing somewhere. If their father had been a Death Eater, loyal to Lord Voldemort, then why didn't he turn Harry over to Voldemort without James and Lily being present? And if he was loyal, why didn't he wait, and turn them, his own daughters over as well? Didn't Voldemort want all three of them, not just Harry?

Sophia sighed, stopped the shower, toweled herself off and dressed in muggle clothes. She went back into the dormitory, where the rest of the girls had woken up, and fished in her trunk. When she found the bottle of nail polish, she went to the windowsill and painted her nails black. This was about as close as she got to feeling nostalgia for something she'd never had, something that should have belonged to her, but never did: her father, and with him, the name Black. She now had the name, but it didn't feel hers somehow, it felt like new shoes that were exactly what she wanted but hurt because they weren't broken in yet.

Vieara and Ginny were happily singing "Magical Broomsticks" by the Weird Sisters at the top of their lungs. Sophia tried to join in the laughter but choked instead, and went down the Great Hall for breakfast. She was early of course, and Dumbledore was the only person in the room. Sophia was about to take a seat when she heard his voice call her. "Miss Black?"

"Yes, Professor?"

"Come sit with me for a moment." She obeyed, and made her way to the high table.

"Yes?" She asked , staring at her fingernails. He too looked at them. "Are you missing you father, I suspect?"

"Well, I know I shouldn't be, because he is you know, a criminal and all, but I can't help it. I love him. He's my father. Can I miss him if I've never known him? Why do I, when I know what he did?"

"Because you're human, Miss Black. And because he is your father. Some humans have the wonderful ability to forgive."

"But I shouldn't. Vieara hates him, mum hates him, I should too. I should hate him for killing. But I don't."

"You shouldn't hate him. Hate is a strong emotion, especially for a young girl to bear."

"There's just something that doesn't . . . fit."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, if he was a supporter of Voldemort's . . . " She blinked and tried to correct herself. "I mean, You Know Who."

"Voldemort." Dumbledore said firmly.

"If he was his supporter, why didn't he wait until we were born, and take Harry, I'm sure his parents would have trusted Sirius, and give all three of us to Voldemort? Why would he expose himself so early on when he could have cause so much more harm? It doesn't make any sense."

"I'll admit, Miss Black, I've always wondered similar things. But I have no answers, and Sirius was sent to Azkaban with no trial. The only person who can answer is in no position to, I'm afraid."

"Are visitors allowed in Azkaban?"

"No. Not family members, anyway. Only certain Ministry Officials are allowed to visit. And few ever wish to. Azkaban is a rather unpleasant place, Miss Black."

"How so?"

"What keeps the prisoners locked and unable to escape are their own minds and fears rather than any bars. The prison is guarded by dementors, creatures who suck all happiness from people and leave them with the worst of their memories and emotions."

"So even if I was to see him, and try to talk to him, he wouldn't be the same?"

"That is correct. He'd have little in common with the man he once was."

"Does he know about us?"

"Yes. He was notified of your birth."

"What did he say?"

"I was not the one who notified him, but I heard that he uttered the words I want to see them."

"What was he like?"

"Mischievous. Big charmer. You have his cheekbones, Miss Black. And his intelligence."

Students had begun to fill the room, stomachs rumbling, and teachers were beginning to take their places around Dumbledore. Sophia rose from Professor McGonagall's chair. "Thank you, Professor Dumbledore."


	6. Not the Wizbournes

Vieara glanced out of the window as the train neared London. She couldn't wait to be home. To wallow in the laziness of summer, to swim, talk to her old friends. She missed her mother much more than she wanted to admit even to herself.

Their mum was waiting impatiently for the train to arrive at the platform. She was knitting her hands together and pulling them apart continuously in apprehension. She was sure Dumbledore had told them. But how much did they know now? Had they changed, now that they knew who their father was?

She didn't have much time to muse. With a whistle, the train pulled in and children eagerly began to disembark. Vieara was among the first ones off, walking along with Ginny and Kellen. They hugged each other goodbye, and she ran up to her mother, and gave her an enormous hug. Elly breathed a sigh of relief. They weren't angry.

But her relief crumbled in a split second when she saw Sophia grudgingly getting off the train. The girl looked depressing, and rather depressed. She was dressed entirely in black, a worn hooded sweatshirt on top, and black baggy cargo pants on the bottom. Her waves were loose and her new bangs hid eyes, which seemed to be lined in thick black eye makeup. Her mother's breath stopped for a moment. Was this her witty little cheerful daughter? No, it couldn't be. This girl was a stranger. She knew instantly that Sophia hadn't taken the news about their father as well as Vieara had. It was obvious that she was angry, but Elly was unsure whom the anger was directed toward. Was it for her? Or Sirius?

She felt a knot in her stomach tighten. She hadn't said his name in nearly ten years.

"Sophia!" She hugged the angry looking girl, who stood tensely in her arms, but didn't respond.

"Hullo." She said flatly, boring her charcoal rimmed eyes into her mother's with an accusing glare. Elly pretended not to notice anything different, but involuntarily flinched at the site of the scribbles on Sophia's hand, which read Daddy's Girl proudly. Vieara shot an angry look in her sister's direction. She hated the way Sophia was upsetting their mother on purpose.

"Let's go home," Vieara announced.

"Well, actually I was thinking, why don't we stay at Diagon Alley for a couple of days. I have some shopping to do, and you two can explore the place while I'm running my errands." Vieara readily agreed, and Sophia shrugged.

"Names?" Tom asked, quill poised to fill out the hotel registration form of the Leaky Cauldron.

"Eleonora, Vieara and Sophia Ivanova." Elly dictated.

"Black." Sophia corrected sharply. "Sophia Black." Tom changed the name, but her mother stared at her, with a mixture of anger and pain on her face. But Tom was already asking the next question.

_I've barely gotten here and already she's ignoring me. She's ignoring my "Black-ness", my attitude toward her. She acts as if I'm goin through some sort of phase that I'll just snap out of in a few days if maybe she ignores it. _

Sophia put down the quill and sighed. She had no plans to change, at least until she got some answers.

The few days at the Leaky cauldron passed quickly, and before long, they were back in their beloved Bulgaria, Sophia seeking solitude in the open valleys and the river, Vieara becoming a fluttering social butterfly in the midst of her old friends. But a conflict was brewing and they could all feel it.

War broke out on a cool summer Saturday morning.

". . .get your stupid books off of my bed."

"Oh, shut up. Big deal, there's a book on your bed. I know you're allergic to books and all . . . but geez." Elly tried to ignore the fight, hoping it would blow over soon.

"I am when they belong to filthy traitors!" There was a thud on the floor, as if Vieara had swept the books off her bed and onto the floor.

"Don't you dare throw my stuff. And you're the traitor here. He's OUR FATHER! How could you just ignore his existence?!"

"HE"S NOT A FATHER HE'S A MURDERING BASTARD!"

"DON'T YOU DARE CALL HIM A BASTARD, YOU LITTLE PERKY BITCH." It was obvious that this particular fight was not going to blow over easily. Their mum got up, and started to climb the stairs to their rooms.

"Perky?! At least I don't walk around mourning some ASSHOLE TRAITOR WHO NEVER CARED ABOUT US!"

"Fuck you!"

Elly opened the door.

"Great comeback." Vieara was rolling her eyes, hands on her hips. Sophia was clutching three books tenderly, eyes flashing dangerously at her sister.

"Whoa. You two. Cut the swearing, first of all. We are NOT the Wizbournes. What exactly is the problem?"

"The problem is you all act like he never existed." Sophia yelled.

"She's a traitor, that's the problem." Vieara growled at the same time.

Elly sighed. "This he, is your father isn't it?"

Sophia nodded and Vieara flashed another dangerous look in her direction.

"I can't believe you kept something like that from us. Why didn't you tell me who he was? You don't think I deserve to know?" Sophia sank into a cross-legged position on the floor. Elly too sat on the floor, and looked up at her other daughter. "Vieara, can you leave us alone for a few minutes?"

Vieara looked pained to leave, but nonetheless abandoned the room, slamming the door behind herself.

"Why?" Sophia repeated softly.

"Look, Sophia it's hard for me to talk about him even now. "

"Why?"

"Don't you understand? He wasn't only a Death Eater, he didn't only betray Lily and James, he betrayed me. And you. I had no idea who he was. What he was."

"He was my father. He still is my father."

"No, he isn't. He never was. He never saw you being born, he never took care of you."

"He loves me."

"How do you know? He never loved any of us. Not Lily, not James, not me, not you. If he had he wouldn't have betrayed us."

"He loves me. I know it." She insisted.

"I hate to break your heart, Sophia, but he never knew you, and he never wanted to, judging by his actions."

"Why did you keep him a secret?"

"How do you tell a couple of little girls that their father is a traitor, a murder in the darkest and scariest of prisons? Tell me."

"He's not a traitor. I love him. And I'm not a little girl. Why don't you ask Dumbledore. He did it. He told us."

"I knew he would."

"Then why didn't you tell us yourself? I didn't even know his name!"

'And now that you do? How does it change anything?"

"It changes me. It changes who I am. I am Sophia Black."

"No, you aren't. You were raised Sophia Ivanova, and you are Sophia Ivanova."

"I'm not. I'm different in case you haven't noticed, and I have a new identity now. I used to be Sophia Ivanova, a little girl shielded from her past, from secrets. But I'm Sophia Black now, a girl whose past is a part of her, who knows what's been hidden from her all theses years, and she isn't happy about it." She declared melodramatically.

"It's not your past, it's my past and his past, but not yours."

"It is mine, because I am him, and I am you." She brushed her long bangs from her eyes. "Besides HE has a NAME. Sirius."

"He doesn't deserve anything. Not even a name."

"He deserves a lot more than that. He deserves to know that at least one person from his family hasn't abandoned him." She said fiercely.

"You don't get it do you? We didn't abandon him, he abandoned us!"

Sophia refused to answer. She hugged her knees instead, and played with the tips of her hair.


	7. Charcoal and the Owl

Sophia became friends with Ginny. Vieara, on the other hand, could never be seen without Kellen. And both twins were often seen with the Weasley twins, playing jokes on everyone.

"Why is your last name Ivanova, and Sophia's Black?" Ginny asked Vieara.

"Because Ivanova is my mother's last name. I kept it. Sophia changed hers to Black when she found out who our father is. His last name is Black." Vieara answered, not quite looking at Ginny, with a note of finality in her tone. Ginny got the hint.

"I wonder why Thalia blushed when I asked her if she wasn't hot in that cloak of hers." Sophia whispered to her sister the next day, in Defense Against The Dark Arts. Professor Lockhart was babbling (more like bragging) about the time he'd defeated a mummy in less than fifteen minutes.

"Yeah. It's weird. And she looked uncomfortable when I mentioned Ireland and fairies and elves, didn't she?" Vieara added.

"And she never takes off that cloak. Like, ever! She only takes it off after pulling the drapes around her bed." Sophia whispered.

"Miss Black! Would you mind telling the class what exactly you're discussing?"

"Oh, she was just telling me how she admires your courage. You know, facing a mummy without a wand and all." Vieara said, smiling sweetly at Lockhart. Sophia pretended to look embarrassed, lowering her eyes and smiling slightly.

The class snickered, but Lockhart looked absolutely flattered. Vieara even dared to blow a bubble with her Droobles' Best Blowing Gum (in her favorite flavor, Bubbles'n Bats). And let me tell you, when Drooble says his gum blows best, he doesn't lie. Droobles' bubbles are as big as a human head. The good news is, that they don't pop often. The bad news is, that just then, it did.

And a teacher, even one as self-centered as Lockhart, notices if one of his pupils' face is covered in sticky black bubble gum. And so does the class. It was howling with laughter.

Vieara paused for a second, in thought. "Well, I was going to pluck my eyebrows anyway." She announced, shrugging, with an impish grin. Then she raised her hand.

"May I be excused? Some gum seems to have found its way to my face."

"Don't." Sophie said with a smile. She took her wand off her desk, and pointed at Vieara's face. "Removius!"

The gum unstuck from her skin and hairs painlessly, and curled itself into a small ball in midair. The class stared at both girls, amazed.

"Thanks!" Vieara grinned. "I really have to learn that one!"

"Detention, Miss Black. No chewing gum in class." Professor Lockhart declared, clearly irritated by Sophie's little spell.

"Oh, Professor! But I was looking forward to reading your biography tonight! I'm so disappointed. I won't get a chance to find out about all of your heroic adventures." Vieara tried to save herself.

Lockhart actually bought it! His face softened and he smiled a bit. "Well, well. No need to deny you of that pleasure." The class couldn't help but snicker again.

On Halloween, Ms. Norris was found Petrified. The twins agreed not to use their Double Trouble Guide just yet. It was much too dangerous.

Sophia wrote to their father in the back of the notebook often, and loved how he answered. Always gentle, at the same time a bit strict, but with a sense of humor and mischief. He often asked about Vieara and their mother. She never said much, just that they were too busy to write.

He asked about Harry Potter too, once. Sophia was surprised.

I don't really know him. I've only seen him in the halls and in the common room. He's always with my friend Ginny's brother Ron and a girl named Heather or Hermione or something. She's a real know-it-all. And Harry seems, a little, well, self absorbed.

She wrote. She told him about Ginny. How pale she was. Jumpy and nervous.

Unlike Sophia, Vieara had no interest whatsoever in what her father had to say. She completely ignored the front and back of the notebook, only reading the troublemaking guide in the middle. Most of their first year at Hogwarts was rather uneventful for them, but many strange things happened to others in the school. Ginny seemed to change a lot toward the end of the year, but by then it was discovered that Lord Voldemort's memory had possessed her and a giant basilisk had tried to kill her. But she had been rescued heroically by Harry Potter, and the whole matter was eventually forgotten as the twins readied to return to Bulgaria that summer.


	8. Seventeen Dorset Drive

Sophia too dropped the letter, in shock, and it fluttered to the floor, where the dog carefully examined it. Her father, was out of prison. He was looking for her. To kill her, but looking for her nonetheless. She felt a surge of powerful emotions rush into her stomach, and she sank to the floor. At first a great flash of fear took her over, but she shook it off. He wouldn't kill her. She was sure. Not if he saw her, spoke to her. But she was afraid of him; what if she saw him, and he didn't know her? Come to think of it, she had no clue what he looked like either. What if she didn't know what to say to him? What if he laughed at her for assuming he even cared?

"Vieara, Sophia! Come here right now! Pack your bags, we're going to London!" Sophia gasped. The dog squealed slightly and ran out of the open back door into the night. She tried calling him back but it was no use… he had run off into the meadow and was probably already in the woods.

"Sophia! Where are you?" Her mother yelled, with a note of panic in her voice. She could hear her sister shuffling around upstairs. She didn't want her mother to see that she'd read the letter.

"I'm here! I'll be upstairs in a second!" She hollered back in what she hoped was a normal, calm voice. But it didn't seem to matter very much, her mother was hardly listening.

In a few short minutes, Vieara and Kellen had shuffled down the stairs looking frazzled and quite dazed, Sophia looking upset following with her guitar bag, their mother rounding up the rear, followed by three floating trunks. They stopped in front of the fireplace and Elly pulled a small jar of Floo powder out of her bag.

"You go first, I'm still trying to remember if we need anything else."

"But where are we going?" Vieara protested.

"Number Seventeen Dorset Drive. Just say it clearly, and you'll be all right."

Vieara and Kellen took a pinch each and spoke clearly in unison. As soon as they were gone, Sophia shot a knowing look at her mother and stepped into the fire. Elly looked around the empty house for a moment and spotted the letter, still lying where it had fallen from her shaken hands. Her eyes burned with tears, but she rubbed them away and waved her wand at the piece of parchment. It shriveled as if being burned and disappeared into nothingness. She sighed and threw her pinch in.

"Seventeen Dorset Drive."

Once she got out she saw that the kids were waiting for her, Vieara and Kellen talking in hushed but frantic voices and Sophie standing off to one side clutching a bag of books and notebooks and her guitar. The room in which they stood was tiny and somewhat grubby, but very clean. A set of worn wizard's robes hung on the door of a small wardrobe, looking freshly ironed. The occupant, however seemed to be missing.

"Mum, where are we?" Vieara spoke angrily. "I don't understand what's going on! Who lives here?"

"An old friend of mine does. From school. His name is Remus. I haven't warned him that we're coming, but I'm sure he'll be glad for the company. Speaking of which, I should do that." She conjured a glowing silver leopard which bounded out of the room after nodding, as if she had received instruction. Minutes later bounded in a large bird, which seemed to speak, but the twins and Kellen didn't understand a word. Elly nodded at the bird and it vanished.

"He says he'll be home soon, although he's going out of town for a few nights in a couple days. Let's cook him some dinner. Lupin is always too thin. Sophie, drop your stuff over there and come sit with me." She gave Sophia a meaningful look. "You two can look around and settle in a bit, but don't leave the flat!"

With that they sulked off in the farthest possible corner to try to figure out why Vieara's mother had taken them to London for no apparent reason, with absolutely no warning. Sophia, on the other hand, sat at the chipped kitchen table examining her equally chipped black fingernails, while Eleonora tried to study her face.

"You read the letter." It wasn't a question, so Sophia didn't answer.

"Look at me." Her mother whispered furiously.

Sophia looked up. Her chin gave the ever slightest nod. "I don't see how you were going to keep it from me anyway, it'll be all over the Prophet by tomorrow morning at the latest. The highest security prisoner of Azkaban, escaped."

"I know I can't keep that from you. But do you understand what Dumbledore said? You have to be on your toes. You can't wander off, not when you're here with me, not when you're at school."

"Dumbledore says he's looking for me." Sophia said definitely and her mother had to stop herself from letting out a harsh, humorless laugh.

"He's not looking for a reunion, Sophie. Trust me. He's looking to finish what he started twelve years ago. To finish the job he never finished then."

"You don't know that. I'm his flesh and blood. He wouldn't kill me."

"Have you ever been to Azkaban? Not only do you have no idea what happened twelve years ago, but you have never seen a prisoner. There is no way he is the slightest bit sane anymore, even if he once was. Twelve years of those awful creatures are enough to make the most pure soul go mad, and his was hardly pure to begin with. You need to stay away from him. You need to promise me that you won't do anything stupid, that you won't go looking for him." Sophia kept staring defiantly, un-blinking.

"This is not a game, Sophia! We're talking about your life, and Vieara's and mine, and Harry's. There's a lot more to lose than there is to gain. He's not worth this trouble."

Unexpected tears welled up in Sophie's eyes and overflowed. She tried to hide them with her hands. "How can you say that? How you love someone and marry them, and then think they're a traitor? How can they be yours one day and the enemy's the next? How can he be my dad and then want to kill me?!" She couldn't stop her sobs, all those awful paradoxes that had cycled through her mind all year and now lay bottled in her chest, finally came loose. And her mother didn't yell at her like Sophie thought she would. She reached out and held her, murmuring "I don't know, Sophie, I don't know. I never knew," Softly into her hair.

Someone burst into the fireplace at that moment, and Sophia hastily tried to wipe her tears as Vieara and Kellen bounded into the room.

"Hello! Oh I've forgotten what it's like to come home to a noisy house! Elly, god, I haven't seen you… since…" Lupin stepped out of the fireplace and hugged Elly tightly.

"So you've heard, I take it?" He whispered in her ear. She nodded and whispered back, "That's why we're here."

"Heard what?" Vieara asked rudely, the fuse of her patience finally reaching the point of explosion. Kellen looked expectant, and Sophia couldn't help but sniffle. Lupin let Elly go and spotted Vieara and Sophia for the first time.

"Elly, they're nearly adults! Last time I saw them they begged me to buy them Ice Mice and toy brooms and now…" _they look just like him_, he wanted to say but he couldn't. Elly nodded, understanding. The upturned, proud noses and the sculpted cheekbones, the thick lashes were all his. Elly was only noticeable in their lips and brown, rather than black, hair.

"Why are we here?" Vieara asked again. "I mean… not that it's not nice to meet you and all…" She stepped forward and offered her hand. "Vieara, although I suppose we've met. What's going on exactly?"

Elly stepped forward. "Vieara, your dad has escaped from Azkaban."

Vieara lost all the traces of her summer tan, it seemed. "Don't call him my dad." She stared at Sophia, who hadn't reacted at all. "You know?"

Sophia nodded. "I read the letter."

Vieara stepped back. "I can't believe you didn't tell me."

"I just found out! You're not the only thought in my mind, you know!" Sophia spat back, getting angry.

"Yeah, I do. I bet you're sitting here imagining a reunion with the traitorous bastard, I bet you're thrilled."

"Don't tell me what I am! It's none of your fucking business anyway. Just because you're being a narrow-minded prat doesn't mean I have to be one too." Sophie's voice rose to top Vieara's angry tone.

"Hey, hey. You two have been out of hand lately. We are guests! Where are your manners?!" Elly moved between them. Lupin looked back and forth between the two, trying to follow the implications of their words. Kellen was sulking back, pale, looking as if he wanted to say something but didn't have enough guts. Sophia broke the glaring by looking away, to Lupin.

"I'm sorry. That was rude. Thank you for having us. Mum and I were going to make dinner. Would you like anything specific?"

Lupin smiled, removed his cloak. "Anything's great. I haven't done much cooking, I'm always too tired nowadays."

The mood slowly lightened, Sophia began bustling around the kitchen pulling out pots and Elly and Lupin began chopping up the vegetables they had brought. Vieara and Kellen sulked again to the farthest corner, still talking in furious sounding hushed whispers.

"I'm so sick of her goody-two shoes act!" Vieara hissed. Kellen still looked pale.

"So he's free? What if he… comes looking for you?" He asked, his eyes round.

"I hope he does, I'd like to give him a piece of my mind," Vieara spat. Immediately she looked like she regretted the sentence. "Not that I care about that traitor. He better just leave us alone if he knows what's good for him. " She looked around at the dreary flat and the sparse old furnishing. "I want to go home and practice Quidditch. I really want to make it on the team this year!"

Kellen nodded. "D'you think maybe we ought to go help them?" He peered into the kitchen, where Sophie was chatting with the adults.

Vieara shook her head. "I'm so sick of her angering mum all the time, and talking about him. I just want to go back to Hogwarts and forget about him."

After the dinner, Remus and Elly Conjured cots for the three kids next to the couch. They all rolled into bed and their breathing slowed to a relaxed, slumbering state. Remus offered Elly his bed, offered to sleep on the couch. Elly refused. He looked tired enough without a night's sleep on that shabby, uncomfortable sofa.

She looked him straight in the eye. "I'll sleep in your bed, and so will you. If you don't mind my company, of course."

He met her eyes, but looked away. He half-shrugged, half-nodded. "All right, then."

She hugged him. "I missed you, Moony," She whispered into his robes. He sighed and wound his arms around her. "Let's go to sleep."

They changed into nightclothes and extinguished the light in the bedroom. They lay side by side, carefully on their own side of the bed, careful not to touch, staring at the ceiling. Remus thought Elly was asleep when she whispered to him.

"What do you think he wants, Remus?"

"I wish I knew," he whispered back.

"I never thought I'd see him again. The first year, when the girls were born, It was like I kept waiting for him to come home. Like he'd gone on a trip. But then they started growing and I moved back, and it was hard enough to keep up with them running around all over the place. And I realized he was never going to come home. He was never going to meet them. And I realized I'd never see him again."

"It must have been… I can't even imagine."

"It's worse now. Those two little devils look just like him, Vieara's temper, Sophie's stubbornness, they're all his. And Sophie keeps talking about him as if he's on holiday and he did something bad, like we had a fight and he's coming back any moment now to say he's sorry."

Lupin didn't say anything, but somehow it was the right thing to do. He didn't do it because of that though. He didn't say anything because his mind was too busy having a dialogue. One side of his brain wanted to take Elly's hand, lying just inches from his own. The other side of his brain argued that it was an awful idea, she was Sirius' girl, and it was awkward and wrong enough that he was sleeping in the very same bed as her. But while this argument raged in his head he heard Elly's breath even and she snored lightly. He turned to the side and tried to forget what he had even contemplated. But as he drifted off to sleep he couldn't help thinking, she hadn't always been Sirius' girl, and she definitely hadn't been Sirius' girl for the past decade…


	9. Out with the Old, In with the New

A few weeks later, Sophia was out in a valley, lying on her stomach drawing, when she spotted an enormous shaggy dog peeking out at her from behind the trees on the edge of the valley. It looked tired and worn, but absorbed in her. She had a feeling she'd seen it somewhere before. She didn't know where.

"Hey Pooch, C'mere doggy, doggy." She stretched a hand in its direction. The dog looked startled at the attention but trotted over to her cautiously.

"Hey there, boy. Are you a boy?" She peeked. "Yep. Boy."

She stretched out her hand and touched its muzzle. It was wet. It sniffed her hand, then licked it. She laughed.

"So, you're friendly then, eh?" The dog barked happily. She stroked its matted fur. Then she put her arms around its hungry body. "I like you. I think I'm going to keep you. " The dog licked her cheek at the words, making her laugh again.

"Wow. You are very loveable, huh?" Almost as if it understood her, the dog barked, then continued licking her face. "But we have got to get you a bath first, what do you think?"

The dog wagged its tail happily as it waited for her to gather her art supplies.

"So what am I going to name you? How about . . . Char? You know, like Charcoal. 'cause you're so black. I'm Black too. My name's Sophie Black. My dad is Sirius Black. He's in Azkaban." The dog poised it ears and cocked its head up at her. She stopped, glad for someone to talk to, someone who'd listen and not look angry or hurt at the mention of her father. "He went there before I was born, and I've never seen him. I talk to him though."

The dog barked, as if surprised. She sank into the grass, facing the dog. "He left me this notebook, and his memory is locked in it, so I get to talk to him. I want to ask him all these questions, you see, but he can't answer any of them. "

The dog licked her fingers comfortingly, and she continued slowly. "Everyone believes he's this murderer, and I know I'm supposed to believe it too, I mean there's all this evidence, but something in there just isn't right, you know?" The dog was looking at her sympathetically and a little excitedly, wagging its tail. She shook her head. Sympathetically? Dogs can't sympathize, she scolded herself. She stared into its pale eyes, and she could have sworn she heard it think: _Don't worry, I'm here._

She squeezed her eyes shut, and told herself she was hallucinating from hunger, then got up once again and headed for home, the dog at her heels.

The house was empty when she arrived, and she was glad. She planned to give the dog a good bath and feed him a nice big meal before showing it to her sister and mother. She didn't stand a chance of keeping it, not with the current state of its appearance. She unrolled the garden hose, got an enormous bar of soap, changed into some old clothes, and prepared to get soaked to the skin.

But the dog was oddly obedient, and seemed to enjoy the bath greatly. He allowed her to wash his fur with soap twice and rinse him thoroughly, before removing himself a few meters and shaking the excess water off of himself. Sophia stared in disbelief. This was one smart dog. She went inside to look for a brush, while the dog continued shaking itself off under an apple tree.

When she returned, she brushed its long shaggy black fur until it gleamed. Then she returned inside the house and prepared a meal from the leftover meatloaf and chicken soup from last night's dinner. The dog lapped up all of the soup eagerly, then finished off every bit of the meatloaf. It looked up at her expectantly.

"More?" She asked in amazement. The portion she'd just served had been very generous. The dog looked as if it hadn't eaten this much in weeks. It barked in answer, and she returned with a plateful of moussaca, a sort of casserole made with ground pork, potatoes and eggs. The dog seemed to like this very much and finished it off rather quickly.

She was chewing the last of her Honeydukes' Best Darkest of the Dark Chocolate bars, when the dog sat in front of her and looked at her treat expectantly.

"Oh, no. Sweets aren't good for your eyesight." She insisted.

The dog growled softly then emitted a bark that plainly meant: you believe those people?

"Oh, fine." She bit off a piece and gave the rest of it to the dog, who ate it just as eagerly as it had the rest of the food.

Sophia and the dog, newly renamed Snuffles, sat quietly on the table in the garden when Elly returned from work. Sophia was smearing charcoal, and putting the finishing touches on her picture of the dog, while it lay at her feet, content and sleeping.

"Well, who's this?" Elly asked, secretly happy that for the first time since her return from Hogwarts, her daughter wasn't sporting thick eye makeup.

"His name is Snuffles. I want to keep him. I've never had a pet or anything. Please?" She looked into her mother's eyes for the first time in a long while.

"Sure, as long as he's well behaved." Her mum replied, happy to once again be on her daughter's good side. The dog continued to sleep, as the mother made her way into the kitchen to prepare dinner, and Sophia filled in the dog's eyes with blue oil pastel, and closed her drawing pad.

Not bad, she thought, I'll hang it in my room.

Vieara and Kellen returned in time for dinner, and took seats at the table, while Sophia was in the shower. As she was drying off, for the first time since she returned home, Sophia didn't think about Azkaban or her mum hiding secrets. She thought about dinner, consisting of fettuccini alfredo and yummy tiramisu, and she thought about the rest of the summer. She wanted to write a story of a girl's relationship with her father, and the dog had inspired an idea for a series of paintings of animals. Dogs, mostly.

She pulled on a denim skirt and black T-shirt, brushed her hair up absentmindedly, while planning the paintings. She was halfway down the stairs, when her mum yelled "Sophia! Dinner!". The dog ran after her, ears flapping excitedly. When it reached the bottom step it seemed to leap on Elly. It stood on its back paws before she had even realized what was happening licked her face, yelping. It then moved on to Vieara, who was ready. She caught the dogs front paws before they had perched on her shoulders and lowered it to the ground, laughing.

"I'll only pet you if you promise not to knock me over," She said and the dog barked in response and licked her fingers.

The meal was served, and delicious. During dinner, there was much conversation, little of which Sophia joined into, about Quidditch and the new Firebolt broomstick that had just come out. Sophia was dropping a piece of chicken from her fettuccini alfredo to Snuffles every once in a while, but mostly chewing thoughtfully and staring out the window. Suddenly a light spot appeared in the darkening sky. It grew closer and closer, until she could make out the shape of a light brown Hogwarts owl, carrying a large parchment letter. It swiftly flew into the kitchen and landed on the back of Vieara's now-empty chair. Elly reached for it, and the owl hooted, tired after the long journey.

Sophia finished her last bites and cleared the table while her mum fetched the owl some water and a few Owl Treats. She slid the dishes into the sink, collected her new pet, and went outside, sitting under the kitchen window. The light form the room made a nice shape on the now dark grass. Snuffles put his head in her lap and she stroked it absentmindedly, staring at Sirius in the sky.

There was a great crash in the kitchen, and a faint cry of "No, it can't be!" above her head. Sophia froze, and heard voices yelling from the second floor.

"Are you all right mum?" She heard her sister yell. She remained quite under the window. Her mum went upstairs, and Sophia quietly snuck back into the kitchen to see what had happened. She saw a shattered bowl lying on the floor in shards, and a letter that looked as if it had fluttered to the floor, underneath the table. She picked it up.

_Eleonora-_

_I'm sorry to inform you that Sirius Black has escaped from Azkaban. The Ministry learned this a few days back, but have just told me the news. I am writing immediately. I must warn you, he may be after the girls, and Harry Potter. You must be careful. Take every possible precaution, and do not leave them alone for a moment. Dementors will search for him, and will no doubt find him very soon._

_I'm sorry, I know this must be very painful for you.  
__Keep in contact._

_Signed,  
__Albus Dumbledore_


	10. Potions and Defense Against the Dark Art

Sophie and Vieara trailed into the train after him, staring at each other with wide eyes. "We'll see you later, we're gonna go find some friends." Vieara said rudely. Lupin smiled a little sadly and nodded, sitting alone in a compartment and leaning into his seat, shutting his eyes.

The twins continued on until they found an empty compartment and settled themselves in, finally free to speak their minds and wander among their peers. No one else seemed to want to sit in their compartment, most of their peers looked away rather quickly when they saw them, but the girls were too busy to notice.

"What's he playing at, pretending to be our friend? Right after he snogs mum on the train platform?!" Vieara said indignantly.

"Well he is nice enough, I s'pose." Sophie tried. "Remember that one bloke mum tried to date last year? He offered us pony rides like we were three!"

"Yeah, well that one didn't last when she saw that. Bit daft, wasn't he? Mum's not gonna date someone stupid. I guess he isn't too bad. I guess maybe we should get used to it, you know. Our… _father_…" Vieara spat the word out as if it were indecent. "isn't coming back, so she'd probably going to be dating."

Sophie ignored the attitude about their dad. "Remember when we used to pretend Dad would come back someday and woo Mum again and take us away to a big, pretty house out in the country somewhere, and we're be normal?"

"Yeah, well, that's definitely not gonna happen. More likely for him to kill Mum than woo her." Vieara snapped harshly.

Sophia shuddered. "He would never…"

"I'm sorry, I didn't, I shouldn't-"

"I know what you mean, though. But wasn't Remus friends with Sirius? How weird is that?"

"You mean Mum's going out with Dad's old pal. Bet that'll make him happy to see her!" Vieara filled in sarcastically. "Who cares what he thinks, he sure wasn't into making good impressions, was he?"

Sophie didn't answer, thinking hard. She stared out the door to the compartment. Kellen was walking by. She raised her hand and waved, and for a split second he caught her eye and then looked away as if he hadn't seen her. He kept walk, past the compartment. She didn't say anything to Vieara. Ginny walked into their compartment and said a cheery hello, but Sophie couldn't help but notice most of the second years, and a good heap of older students, whisper and shuffle by their compartment quickly, as if in a hurry to get away. She swallowed hard. If this was what Hogwarts was going to be like from now on, maybe she'd been better off at Seventeen Dorset Drive after all. At least there she didn't have to face Snape and Charms homework.

Some time later, Ginny went to join her brothers and Sophie and Vieara were left alone once again. Vieara dozed off as Sophie read several old newspaper articles she had clipped. Suddenly the train stopped, and the lights went out. Vieara didn't wake, but Sophie looked around in the pitch-black darkness, trying to see. The air was becoming colder and colder, and it seemed as though it were getting lodged in her lungs, her chest. Someone, or rather some_thing_ opened the door and Vieara awoke with a start.

"Who's…" but the sentence didn't quite make it out.

The creature, the _dementor_, Sophie realized, was taking a slow breath, and suddenly it was as if a very loud radio had been turned on in her head, full of static as if the station wasn't quite right. She heard the sound of waves, screams, she felt a little creature, she felt rage pulse though her veins and then pain inflame her body. She felt a bizarre sensation, as if her body was melting, changing. She felt a scream escape her mouth.

"Shhh! Are you alright?" Vieara stroked her hair, still sleepy.

"Is it… is it gone?" Sophie asked, out of breath, as if she had run the length of the train and back. The lights were on again. Vieara nodded.

The compartment door opened, and they cringed instinctively. But it was Lupin who stepped through, not a creature. Sophie felt as if she had never been happier to see him. Even Vieara looked relieved.

"Are you alright? Did they come here?" He asked, looking around, surprised that they were alone in the compartment. He spotted Vieara's freshly-purchased supply of Chocolate Frogs. He handed one to each of the girls. "Eat the frogs, chocolate helps."

"We're ok now," Vieara said. "But thanks," she added in a very soft tone. She peeled the foil off the Frog. She did not need to be told twice to eat chocolate.

"Sophie looked like she was going to slide off her seat, she fainted or something. She seemed more… hurt or affected or whatever you'd call it." Vieara said thoughtfully as she chewed. Her sister sent her a sharp, unthankful glare. Lupin looked thoughtfully in Sophie's direction.

"Eat!" He repeated.

"I'm fine," She protested, biting off the Frog's head. But she was obviously still shivering, her hairline covered in cold sweat. "Those things, they're what they have in Azkaban, aren't they?"

Lupin nodded.

"Is that…" She didn't finish her sentence. Lupin nodded again. Vieara was munching, pretending not to hear a word of the conversation.

"I better go see how Harry is doing. He fainted too." Lupin got up.

"Harry Potter?" Vieara asked, looking a mix of curious and disdainful. Lupin nodded and backed out of the compartment, waving slightly.

Despite the dementors' search and the attitude of their classmates, Sophia's spirits soared when she lay eyes on the castle, eager to eat the feast she knew was waiting, to sleep in her bed again, and to roam the grounds freely. Guiltily, she thought of her years of freedom, and her father's long years of confinement in the awful prison, Azkaban. Vieara was too busy chattering to Ginny, Fred and George to notice her sister. Sophia was so intensely conflicted for a long moment that her temples seared with pain. She saw a flash of a great shaggy dog running though a dark mass of trees, a forest, and then white spots burst in front of her eyes, blinding her. No one noticed anything around her. In the midst of the excited chatter, no one saw her face pale and her hairline break in sweat again, or her eyes widen in recognition.

"Snuffles!" So that's why the dog had looked familiar when she first saw him in that meadow. She'd seen him before! On the Hogwarts Express, on the way home from school at the end of the last term, she'd had a flash just like this one. But the dog had been swimming then. But this was ridiculous! Who had visions (were they visions?) of a… dog?

A burst of laughter from the Weasley twins snapped Sophia back to the moment. Vieara had just advised Fred to use an Itching Powder on some poor soul, in addition to a little charm which made nasty pus-filled bubbles erupt on certain nether regions of the body. Sophia grinned. Vieara had read that in Sirius' notebook. They would finally get to use their father's rule-breaking guide to its fullest extent, now that the Basilisk had been killed. Maybe this year wouldn't be so bad after all.

But things didn't look very good at the feast. Dumbledore warned the students of the dementors guarding the entrances. Sophie shivered, never wanting to go near another one of those awful creatures. And worse than that, nearly all of the second years were muttering and looking at her and Vieara. She heard someone w hisper "His daughters, it's true" as they all gathered in a group to walk to Gryffindor tower. She pretended not to hear, but her eyes filled with unexpected tears which she hastily rubbed away, feinting tiredness. Vieara looked angrily at Kellen, who was talking to Lee, a Ravenclaw second-year. The two were whispering and glancing in Vieara's direction. She glared their way and tried to respond to Ginny, who had just asked her a question. _This is ridiculous,_ Vieara thought, _do they think we're smuggling him in or something? We know less than they do, probably. _

The next month was decidedly the worst time the twins had ever had. Their classmates did not perhaps, want to acknowledge that the girls had never met Sirius Black, that they could not have. Rumours flew left and right that Sophie was helping him somehow and that Vieara had been taught Dark Magic, so she should not be angered, in case she was to use it against her classmates. This of course, made Vieara even more angry, and more prone to telling people off. Sophia simply pretended she heard none of it, and became consumed by books, her homework, and writing again in Sirius' notebook. If only they knew that she was writing to him…

Vieara took her anger out on the Quidditch pitch where she flew alone after classes when none of the house teams were practicing. She hadn't made the Gryffindor team because none of last year's players had left, so she just flew pointlessly, diving and increasing her speed dangerously until one day she nearly slipped off her broom and got a telling off from Professor McGonagall, who happened to be walking by.

"Miss Black, get off the pitch immediately and return to Gryffindor Tower," She looked around somewhat nervously. "You should not be down here alone, especially not doing such dangerous moves."

Vieara, still stunned at her near-fall from about thirty feet up, nodded meekly and headed toward the castle. She didn't notice the large pale eyes following her steps from the edge of the forbidden forest, and didn't hear the happy little yelp that the large animal whom they belonged to had let loose. She returned to the nearly empty common room. It was a Hogsmeade day and most people from third year up were out. Most of the second years were in the library finishing an exceptionally long Potions essay that Snape had assigned. Vieara kept walking, up into the dormitory. Her sister lay on her bed reading her Potions book, underlining bits of it.

Unlike most everyone in Gryffindor, and everyone that Snape picked on in general, Sophie seemed to love the subject, if not the teacher who taught it. She worked quietly and quickly, often completing her potions before the rest, and nearly perfectly. If Vieara's remarks and curses under her breath annoyed Snape, Sophie's remarkably unpretentious knowledge enraged him. But he could find no reason to dock marks or to correct her. She didn't raise her hand every time he asked a question in class, but nearly every time he called on her, she gave a correct answer.

Snape had no choice but to admit to himself that Sophia Black was an exceptionally talented, and polite, Potions student. He began to think of her as a Black less and less, and realized she was much quieter than her mother as well. He remembered Elly quite well from his schooldays. She began at Hogwarts as a cheerful shy transfer student, but as soon as she began to date Black she had gotten just as obnoxious as the rest of that group, always playing petty pranks and bragging of their misdemeanors. But Sophie didn't seem involved in such childish feats, and she seemed to shrug off Snape's vicious words, as if she saw right through his tough act. She simply did her work, and well. As soon as he sensed that she could have easily been doing fourth year work, he began giving her extra Potions homework and more difficult concoctions to create than the rest of the class. Though he didn't favor her publicly like the Malfoys or his Slytherin students, to himself he had to admit that his favorite pupil was, ironically enough, Sirius Black's daughter.

Vieara on the other hand, competed with Harry Potter easily for the most-hated spot. She landed in detention with him nearly as often as she ate supper, usually for running off her mouth and answering back to his snide remarks. The level of her work was atrocious, she refused to do very much work. Her essays, which were obviously proofread and tweaked by her sister were the only thing that kept her from failing.

"Sophie? May I have a word?" Remus asked softly after the second years' Defense Against the Dark Arts classes. Sophie nodded and stayed behind as the rest of the class trailed out of the room. She stayed in her seat, in no hurry, since this had been her last class for the day.

"Look, I'm sorry if it was awkward for you and your sister for stay with me. I don't know how much your mother told you,"

"She didn't." Sophie interrupted.

"We dated, but it was only temporary. We're not dating anymore. We're just very good friends, like we always have been."

"It's alright, I don't mind. I suppose… I suppose we have to get used to her dating."

"Well, that wasn't quite the reason I asked you to stay behind. Do you remember the train ride here?"

Sophia shuddered involuntarily. "How could I forget?"

"Your sister said… she said you'd fainted for a moment."

"I'm fine!" Sophie tried to protest. But she too had been thinking about why she had fainted and Vieara had not. "But why… why did I faint and Vieara didn't?"

"I was going to ask you the same question. It's curious, that you two, who have been together and experienced similar events reacted differently. Can you think of a reason that you have had more awful experiences in your past perhaps, than Vieara?"

Sophie shook her head. "All the bad things have always happened to us when we were together pretty much. But I didn't think of any of my worst experiences when that dementor came."

"What do you mean?" Lupin asked curiously.

"I mean… I felt things that I don't remember ever happening to me. I felt this feeling, like rage at this little creature. And I felt like I was melting, like I was changing becoming smaller. And I heard waves and water, and my body felt all sore and tired."

"Have you ever had a bad experience with water, when you were younger maybe?"

Sophie shook her head. "I love swimming. But the shape changing was scariest. Why did that happen?"

Lupin shook his head too, still looking puzzled. "I'm not sure. It's quite unusual to feel unfamiliar feelings when near a dementor. Normally, people relive their worst experiences and feel as if though they'll never be happy again."

Sophie considered telling him of the strange, painful flashes she was having of that dog, Snuffles. But she realized how stupid that sounded and kept her mouth shut.

"I'm really sorry about being all… rude… this summer. Vieara and I were kind of restless, and it wasn't right to act like we did. I really enjoyed your stories. And your lessons." Sophie ducked her head, slightly embarrassed. Lupin smiled.

"Thank you," he said.

Sophie stayed quiet for another minute, debating whether or not to bring this up. Deciding she had nothing to lose, she spoke politely. "I know you went to school with mum, so you must have known my dad too. You were friends with him, right?"

Remus suddenly seemed solemn and tired. "I thought I was, yes."

"I'm really sorry, I don't mean to upset you. It's just that, mum won't tell me a thing about him and no one else wants to talk about him, especially now. Could you tell me about him?"

Lupin looked uncomfortable. "What do you want to know?"

Sophie shrugged. "Anything, really. Where was he from? What was his family like? Do I have any cousins? How did he and mum meet, what did they do after they left school? What was he like?"

"In school, he was handsome, he could charm a laugh out of an inanimate object, he was intelligent and restless. He played pranks constantly. Your mum came here in the fourth year, and they didn't meet for a few months. Your mum fancied him for a year before he realized it. He was quite the ladies man before they got together." Did Lupin look resentful for a moment or was that Sophie's imagination?

"What happened when they finished school?"

"They got a little place in Diagon Alley. They lived off of your dad's inheritance while they looked for jobs. Your mum had just gotten pregnant with you two. I didn't see them much then… I went south for a few months looking for a job. But I hear things between them got a little tumultuous. Your mum got restless, being cooped up inside. Everything was getting more and more tense then, Voldemort's attacks increased and become more and more reckless, and they found out he was after you two." He stopped. Sophie didn't want to push her luck.

"Thank you," She hugged him. He stood shocked for a moment, then wrapped his arms around her gingerly.

"Of course," He said. "And I will talk to Dumbledore about your dementor attack, he may understand it better than me."

Sophie nodded.

**Ok, so now for some Q and A. **

**I decided to start this fic up again because I've been home on break and bored out of my wits. I've re-read all the HP books several times, and when I could stomach them no longer I moved onto fanfiction. Then I realized I never finished this fic, and I kinda started thinking of the plot again and what I was going to do before, so I decided to do some editing and start it up again. I'm trimming much of the old stuff away (Thalia is being written out, as she is not really that important to the Sirius line). So now for some Qs I have for you, the readers.**

**Q. What do you think of the OC s? Which one do you like most/least? Vieara, Sophie, or Elly? Why?**

**Q. How do you think they tie into the canon portion of the story (the escape, the dementors, etc)? Should the twins be more integrated with the stories from the books or less?**

**Q. What do you think about Remus and Elly's little escapade? Like? No? why/why not?**

**Q. What do YOU think is going to happen? What do you WANT to happen?**

**Thanks for all your feedback, I hope this story is improving ******


	11. Lessons with Snape

"Miss Black?" Dumbledore called softly as breakfast ended the next morning. "May I have a word with you? In my office?"

Sophie followed him. "I have Potions with Professor Snape first lesson…"

"That will be quite all right, Professor Snape has mentioned that you are quite the Potions student, so I trust you shall not fall behind. And I will have a word with Severus about your tardiness, so you shall not be penalized." They neared the gargoyle and this time he whispered "Ice Mice", and they entered.

"So I guess this is about what Professor Lupin and I talked about, about the dementors on the train?" Sophie piped up.

"Yes it is. I have an idea or two I thought you might like to hear, about what you experienced. But first, tell me what you felt again. Professor Lupin relayed it to me, but I want to make sure that I understood everything."

"Well, I didn't remember my worst memories or anything. I felt all this stuff that was unfamiliar. Like, I heard massive screaming and that dementor breath-sucking sound, but it was like it had been multiplied, like there were tens and hundreds of them instead of just one. And then I felt this little creature, and that brought on a huge burst of rage. And then the weirdest was this sensation, like I was melting, becoming something else."

"Hmm. Well, my possible explanation can account for most of those, I think." Fawkes let out a soft sound, and Dumbledore paused, taking his glasses off, wiping them on his sleeve, looking thoughtful. "I believe those feelings may belong to your father, Miss Black."

"My dad? But… how?"

"I have been told that you have been spending a great deal of time thinking about your father, lately. And I remember the conversation that we had about him at last year's end of term. I think that perhaps your desire to understand him has somehow tapped into his emotions and memories, allowing you some access to them in times when your own mind and emotions are weakened."

"You mean… I can read his mind?"

"The mind is not a book or story, Sophie. It is full of intricate, layered thoughts, memories, images and emotions. But in a sense, when you own mind is weak, I believe that you might be able to _empathize_ with your father to the extent that you share a small bit of his mind's contents."

"But isn't there, a word for that?"

"Normally, the art of looking into the mind of another and interpreting the contents is called Legilimency. The opposing art of shutting your mind to such intrusion is called Occlumency. However, there are certain things that make your case quite unique. For one, Legilimency requires eye contact, and great skill. In your case, no eye contact seems to be necessary. Your desire to understand Sirius's thoughts and actions seems to be more powerful than the space dividing you two."

"But I never meant …"

"Sometimes the strongest forms of magic are the most mysterious, and the most emotional. Harry Potter's mother, for example protected him by dying for him. Love can be the strongest form of magic, stronger than the most complex charms and spells."

"So you mean… because I want to understand, empathize, I can enter his mind?"

"Not consciously. But with training, you might be able to do it at times when you are less vulnerable, at will."

"What kind of training? Can you help me? Can you teach me?"

A look of surprise crossed Dumbledore's face. "You wish to learn? I was quite ready to teach you how to not allow it to happen."

"Well, I'd like to learn both."

Dumbledore gave a curt nod. "Very well then. As long as my pupils wish to learn, I must provide a teacher. However the intrusion upon the mind of another is a very delicate matter, and you must always consider the consequences. You may see things you wish not to."

"Will he know?"

"I don't know, Sophie. I assume not. His mind is weakened by the dementors and your father was never good at keeping his emotions to himself. His temper and his explosive personality make Legilimency much easier, and to my knowledge he was not a well-accomplished Occlumens. However, if he does realize someone is breaking into his mind, I do not believe he would know who it was, and I doubt he would ever suspect you."

"So can I do it? Will you tell the Ministry?"

"Unless you can pinpoint his whereabouts, which I doubt will be the case, I believe the matter does not concern the Ministry. What do you think?"

Sophie nodded. "I agree. I just want to… know him better. As my dad." Fawkes crooned softly again. Sophie twirled the tip of her long braid between her fingers. "What if he comes into my mind?"

"You will be taught to protect your mind, and to heighten your awareness of possible intrusions."

"So when can I start?" Sophie asked eagerly, fidgeting in her seat.

"I must speak to Professor Snape. If he agrees, you shall have to work out appropriate times for the lessons. And Miss Black, I believe it would be wise to… keep quiet about what you are doing."

"Of course. But, wait. Professor Snape?! I thought you…"

"Professor Snape is one of the most highly accomplished Legilimens and Occlumens of our time. I have training in this area as well, but I believe he will be able to give you more consistent lessons than I. Sometimes I take trips out of Hogwarts, and lately I have been at the Ministry all too often dealing with the dementor issues."

"Right."

"Also, Sophie…"

"Yes, professor?"

"Do not mention to Professor Snape the exact reason for your lesson. He and your father were, er, not in the best of terms, and I don't want that to affect your lessons in any way. I will tell him that you were interested in pursuing this and you showed some promise."

"Yes, of course." Sophie couldn't help but grin at Dumbledore. He smiled back. A portrait of a former Headmaster of Hogwarts snorted and muttered, "Oh the things they teach these days".

"Thanks!" Sophie bounded out of the office with a wave, truly cheerful for the first time in months.

When she arrived in Potions, the class was half way through brewing a Swelling Solution, which had been assigned to Sophie months earlier, and successfully completed. She set down her books at the spot next to her sister, who glared at her (her potion had just started producing a thick bluish fog instead of turning orange). She whispered instructions to Vieara and raised her hand, patiently waiting for Snape.

"Miss Black? Do you think the rule for tardiness does not apply to you?"

"No, sir. Professor Dumbledore wanted to talk to me. He said he would have a word with you about it. What would you like me to do this period?"

"Seeing as you do not have enough time to prepare a potion, I will see you tonight, and you will brew me a batch of Wolfsbane Potion." He sneered at her slightly. Sophie's eyes widened and her good mood evaporated. Wolfsbane was a very complicated potion, well beyond not only O.W.L levels but also N.E.W.T. level. It was ridiculous that he ask a second year to make it! He still looked at her, expecting her to protest or refuse. But she swallowed and nodded.

"I will see you in my office at eight." He glared. She opened her Potion book, looking for anything on Wolfsbane, but it was far too advanced of a concoction for the book to feature any useful information. She opened her Charms book instead (her worst subject) and tried to read the chapter Professor Flitwick had assigned for today's lesson, which she had skipped the night before in favor of writing her Transfiguration essay.

Suddenly Adrianne Malfoy's cauldron gave a loud hiss and exploded, dousing the Syltherin section of the class with half-finished Swelling Solution and filling the dungeon with a putrid smell of dung and frog guts. Snape roared with anger, sending the Slytherins straight to the hospital wing as various parts of their bodies were already growing and changing color.

"Black! To the front of your room, turn out your pockets and your bag!" He shouted at Vieara.

"Actually, it's Ivanova." She said, grinning.

"Detention! I will see you tonight. The bedpans will need to be scrubbed after the increase in occupants of the hospital wing." He snarled. Vieara put her arms to her hips but Sophia tugged her robes before she could answer back, giving her the moment necessary to bite her tongue and force herself to keep stirring her potion.

After classes were over for the day, Vieara snuck up on Sophie who was impatiently checking her watch every minute or so, waiting for eight. "D'you want to go out with me? I want to practice flying and McGonagall told me off for going out alone last time."

"Yeah, alright." Sophie went into the dormitory and uncovered her broomstick, lying under a pile of shoes under her bed.

They went down to the grounds, steering clear of the Whomping Willow and Hagrid's hut. They'd never met the gamekeeper, and he sort of intimidating. The Slytherin team was practicing on the Pitch, so they found an empty clearing near the edge of the forest and mounted their brooms. Vieara rocketed off, climbing altitude quickly and agilely. Sophie kind of floated about fifteen feet off the ground, enjoying the view. Vieara tossed a small ball at her and she tried to catch it but it tumbled to the ground. Vieara shot off after it, diving to retrieve it. Sophie tossed it to her, then got bored and landed. Vieara kept flying, circling, doing crazy swooping moves. Her sister sat at the edge of the forest, watching her.

Suddenly, something sneezed behind her. She turned and caught sight of a great pair of large porcelain blue eyes.

"Snuffles?" She asked, cautiously, astonished.

The animal was hidden in the shadows of the trees, invisible except for its eyes. It seemed to hesitate, then slowly stepped forward. It was Snuffles. His coat was matted again and he looked awfully skinny. He yelped quietly and but stopped, as if refusing to go out onto the clearing. Sophie stepped toward him.

"Hey boy. How did you know I was here?" She ruffled his fur, scratching behind his ears. He licked her fingers and wagged his tail excitedly.

"Smart dog!" She praised, sitting next to him. He stepped into her crossed legs, and she put her arms around him. He moved onto licking her face and she laughed.

"Doggy breath!" She pushed him into a lying position, petting his bony frame. "You hungry?"

He barked in agreement.

"Don't worry, I'll bring you something from the kitchens. We're not allowed to have dogs, or I'd take you in. But only cats, owls and toads. Really unfair, huh?" Snuffles nodded and yelped.

"Soph? You in there?" Vieara's voice sounded worried. Snuffles yelped happily at the sound of it, but Sophie shushed him.

"Yeah, I'm coming. Just got a little distracted, saw some bowtruckles." She answered, getting up.

"I'll come back with some food for you, okay?" She whispered to Snuffles. He gave a little whimper and turned, trotting deeper into the forest.

After supper, Sophie had just enough time to sneak some drumsticks and chips out to Snuffles before her extra Potions lesson with Snape. She trotted back to the castle after leaving Snuffles happily munching, and had joined her sister in Snape's office just before the clock hit eight.

He walked into the room menacingly, his dark robe fluttering around him. Vieara looked bored. He snapped his fingers at her.

"I thought I told you to do your detention in the hospital wing, Black."

"Ivanova." Vieara corrected, but before he could tell her off for answering back she had turned and walked out of the room. Sophie stood, patiently waiting to see if the extra Potions lesson might miraculously turn into a Legilimency lesson instead.

"Dumbledore has informed me of your wishes to study Legilimency and Occlumency, Sophia." She nodded. "He has asked that instead of having you brew Wolfsbane tonight I give you your first lesson. So you shall write two rolls of parchment on the potion instead, and be prepared to brew it next month."

"Yes, sir."

"Before we begin…" Snape wandered over to his desk, touching the tip of his wand to his temple. He drew out an interesting silvery substance and poured it into a stone basin sitting on his desk. Sophie watched, amazed at the consistency and color. Might this be a thought? A memory?

But Snape had no interest in explaining himself, and Sophie was not stupid enough to ask. He took a step toward her, raising his wand.

"We will begin with Occlumency. Let's see how strong your defenses are."

"How do I do it, sir?"

"You shall try to empty your mind and seal your thoughts to me. You may use whatever spell you can to protect yourself. On three."

Sophie raised her wand and tried to empty her mind. Her sister's sharp dives and their fights floated to the top of her mind, but she tried to suppress them before Snape hit three and shouted "Legilimens!"

Sophie felt as if his wand was opening a crack in her head. She tried to force him out, but it was too strong, her memories were streaming out, leaking. She saw flashes of Vieara shouting at her and the two of them climbing trees. She saw Snuffles peeking at her in the meadow, the Sorting Hat being placed on her head. The trickle of memories was becoming more of a flood, and she felt her head sear with pain. She suddenly raised her wand and shouted "Expelliaramus" in a last effort to shut him out. The pressure on her head stopped. Snape was holding his wand by the very tip, as it had almost flown out of his fingers.

"Not bad, for the first time. But you let me in too deep. You have to fight me at the first sign of intrusion. And empty your mind fully. Ready?"

"Just a moment." Sophie stuffed a piece of a Chocolate Frog in her mouth and offered a piece to Snape. He reluctantly took it, looking slightly shocked, as if she had offered him poison. They swallowed and Sophie nodded. She found it easier to clear her head this time. It was kind of like, meditating.

"Leglimens!" Snape shouted again, but Sophie fought harder. She felt a pressure, but this time she held him off for more than a minute before another stream of memories began.

"Much better." He stopped on his own this time.

"Sir, can I try Legilimency now?"

"You're tired. You'd do better when you're fresh and rested."

"Please?"

He surveyed her for a long moment. Her hairline was damp and her cheeks pale, but there was a stubborn glint in her eye.

"Alright. Raise you wand, say the incantation. You must want to break into my mind with all your being. If you don't want it enough, it'll never happen." Sophie nodded.

"Legilimens!" She shouted, pushing her desire to learn into the spell. Snape held strong, but so did she. She kept her gaze and wand steady and waited for him to weaken. He did the same. Sophie's strength wavered, but as soon as she left Snape fight back, she pushed again with a force she didn't know she had. A tiny stream of thoughts came rushing into her head. She felt a hatred and saw Harry Potter sitting in a Potions lesson, and then… she was shut out again, her energy sapped. She lowered her wand and struggled not to collapse. Snape made a quick movement toward her, lead her by the arm to his chair.

"Sit. Do you have any more chocolate?" She nodded, splitting another Chocolate Frog with him. He was so different that in Potions lessons when they were alone. Less snappy, definitely. Not nice exactly, but definitely an improvement.

"Impressive," He said quietly, in a non-praising kind of matter-of-fact voice. "Not very many twelve year old wizards could do what you just did, Sophia. If you didn't look so much like him, I'd say you had nothing to do with Black."

Sophie stayed quiet. What could her father have possibly done to have Snape hate him so much? Her mind replayed the comment, and she realized the compliment. "It wasn't that good. You saw all my memories and I nearly fainted the last time."

"I could have seen much more." She knew he'd seen the fights she'd been having with her sister and mum, and she sat awkwardly, hoping he wouldn't say anything about them.

"Thank you, professor."

"Certainly. Next week, same time, same place."

Sophie lingered. "Um, professor? Could we maybe have one sooner?"

Snape looked surprised, but nodded. "Alright. Thursday afternoon. Five?"

She nodded and waved goodbye as she left. Snape shook his head, ready to place his thoughts back into his head from the Pensieve. The Black twins would never cease to amaze him with their bi-polar, opposing personalities.

Vieara spent the next few weeks on the Quidditch Pitch venting her anger at Sirius and Snape, until she landed in the hospital wing with a leg broken in three different places. Sophie retreated into herself, not hanging out with Ginny very much, mostly sitting in her dormitory reading and trying to practice Legilimency. She found an odd sense of accomplishment at being the only Gryffindor Snape didn't outwardly despise, and despite her initial dislike for his frosty attitude, she realized she enjoyed his lessons and the sense of pride she got when he gave her a few rare words of praise.

On Halloween Sirius Black broke into the castle, and Vieara was forbidden from stepping foot on the Pitch, as she was not on a Quidditch team. Angry at yet another manner in which her father was ruining her life, Vieara spent her energy in plotting pranks with the Weasley twins that almost always ended up targeting Snape, so Vieara spent most of her lesson-free time in detentions, until her section of files in Filch's office threatened to take up most of an entire drawer. Sophie was too tired to join in her sister's antics and absolutely refused to play pranks on Snape, so the tension between them only grew.


	12. November the Thirteenth

On the morning of November thirteenth, Vieara woke up the entire girl's dormitory with a delighted whoop at the pile of presents at the end of her bed. Sophie was the only other occupant who stayed awake and didn't grumble. Everyone else went back to sleep, as it was a dreary rainy Saturday morning perfect only for sleeping in and missing breakfast. Or opening birthday presents. The twins rushed at the small piles of gifts, eagerly tossing glossy wrapping paper to the side.

Their mother had bought both a large collection of Zonko's products and Honeydukes' Sweets, in addition to a new book called _A History of the Most Magical Places in_ _Britain_ for Sophie and a Broom Servicing Kit for Vieara. Vieara had given Sophie a box of Deluxe Sugar Quills as she had an awful habit of chewing on her sister's quills. And Vieara laughed when she opened her sister's gift; Sophie had given her a box of Spell-Checking Quills, because of her atrocious spelling. After the customary clothing gifts from their grandparents, they were surprised to find a small pile of gifts still remaining.

Vieara picked up a badly-wrapped little package and turned it, looking for a tag. There was none. She tore at it, and its contents spilled into her hands, silvery and slithering.

"Wow!" She gasped. Her hand had just disappeared. She unfolded the cloth, whipping it around her. Her body disappeared, her head bobbing happily out of thin air.

"Who's it from?" Sophie asked, also awed. Vieara shrugged.

"Dunno," she said. "No tag."

Sophie tore her eyes away from her sister's gift to tear open her own unmarked package, which was considerably smaller and more solid, but just as poorly wrapped. She opened a little box. Inside it, on a bed of cotton, lay a small silver locket with an intricate pattern. Her eyes roundened. This was an extremely expensive piece of jewelry. She had read enough to recognize it as goblin made and extremely old. She took it from the box, holding it out for her sister to see.

"Oh cool! It's really pretty!" Vieara grinned. "I reckon we've got secret admirers then."

Sophie laughed. She motioned for her sister to help her with the locket. It shone pale against her throat, as she pulled her thick curtain of dark hair out from under the chain. On her bed lay two more presents, but on Vieara's only one. She tucked one package under her pillow, hoping Vieara hadn't noticed the discrepancy. They opened the last packages, which were wrapped in identical plain paper. Vieara's was the latest edition of _Quidditch Throughout the Ages _and Sophie's was a very old looking, worn copy of the same book. At first she thought it might be a mistake, seeing as she wasn't really much of a Quidditch fan, but when she opened the front cover what she saw made her smile. In thin faded writing on the cover was scribbled:

**Property of Sirius Black. If that's not you get your filthy hands off my favorite (and possibly only) book!**

She snorted and leafed through. Her father had made notes in the margins, underlined bits and circled especially pretty girls on the team pictures. She leaned back on her pillow, enjoying the read. She would have a delicious excuse to put off her homework this weekend. Not only that, but she had two whole days to begin speculating who had sent her and her sister two sets of un-identified presents. It was possibly the best birthday she'd ever had.

* * *

After breakfast Sophie remembered the extra present she had received, which she'd tucked under her pillow, and spent the rest of the day trying to return to her dormitory alone for long enough to open it, but failed. Seeing as it was Saturday, and pouring outside, Ginny, Calliope and Vieara were happily having an impromptu sing-a-long to the radio. Sophie gave up and joined in for a bit, then finally went to the library to write her Defense Against the Dark Arts Essay. Finding that she could not focus on Cornish pixies for more than five minutes at a time, she gave up on writing, found a remote corner of the nearly-empty library, facing a window and screwed up her face in concentration.

Her lessons with Snape had been going extraordinarily well, according to him, but Sophie disagreed. She had not been able to apply the things she had learned in her lessons to finding out more about Sirius. She couldn't very well ask Snape how to perform the spell with the person whose mind she was attempting to break into not present, and she couldn't quite think of how to word a question about her precise circumstances. And Sophie had learned to block her own mind so well that she never got the spontaneous flashes of anything anymore. And she wasn't stupid enough to go near the dementors to see if she still felt her father's worst memories instead of her own.

She tried to concentrate on the idea of her father. Her forehead wrinkled. A flash of lightning struck somewhere beyond the forest and the sky lit up for a split second. Nothing happened. She sighed. All she could think of was her presents. Who would send her and her sister anonymous gifts? She couldn't think of anyone she was friends with sending her something and not putting their name on it. She put her chin in her hand, resting it and staring out the window absentmindedly.

"Rotten weather for a birthday, isn't it?" Sophie heard a quiet voice behind her. She nodded without turning.

"Happy birthday." Sophie whipped her plaits around and smiled at Lupin.

"Thanks, professor."

"Did you get anything good?" He asked, his eyes twinkling, with a slight smile.

Sophie grinned, nodding. "Actually, we did. I got a very _special_ copy of Quidditch Throughout the Ages and a locket." Of course, it had been Lupin!

He raised his eyebrows, and then jumped from the seat as if burned. "A locket? Where is it?" He said desperately. "Is it in your dormitory? Has anyone touched it?"

Sophie looked dazed. "What? But I thought you-"

"No, I didn't! Not a locket! I must see it immediately."

Sophie reached behind her neck to unfasten the clasp. "Alright."

He gasped. "You put it on?! You shouldn't have touched it! You should have notified me immediately if someone was sending you anonymous gifts."

"But professor-"

"Oh I know, but I only sent a book, and it was rightfully yours anyway," He continued in the same urgent voice as she continued to wrestle against the clasp.

"But professor, I'm fine. It's not cursed or anything." She finally got it off, handed it to him. He held it gingerly, as if waiting for something to happen. Nothing did. He pulled his wand out of his pocket and began muttering under his breath. After a few long minutes, he stopped, still staring at the locket diligently. Nothing happened.

"Sirius Black could have sent that to you, it could have been cursed!" He looked Sophie in the eye sternly. She nodded. "And if anything happened to you or Vieara, I'd be the one answering to your mum!" He added and they both laughed quietly.

"Sorry, I just didn't…"

"It's alright; I shouldn't be sending anyone anonymous gifts either. I just thought, you know, as a teacher, I ought not to show favoritism."

Sophie grinned. "Oh darn, you mean you won't give me top marks just because you dated my mum and she's wicked hot, even if I don't go to class?!"

"Well when you put it that way…"

* * *

Sophie didn't want to venture out of the warm castle, but after she had successfully nicked nearly half a chicken, mashed potatoes and bread rolls from the Great Hall, she had no choice. She stuffed her booty in a large glass jar and wrapped her cloak tightly around her. Hopefully Snuffles hadn't drowned in the downpour, or her efforts would be useless. She walked out.

It was like walking into a cold shower, with the added bonus of fierce wind and occasional lightning bolt. She swore under her breath and trudged on. The edge of the forest neared. She slipped on the mushy mud and fell on her bottom, the glass container slipping from her grip and bouncing a few feet away. She shuffled toward it angrily, dripping mud over ever inch of cloth that covered her. She was so angry she didn't realize what was happening until she had slipped again and sat on the ground. Suddenly, she saw her new locket, on a neck. The neck of a young girl, with long flowing dark hair.

"Mum!" She whispered. She shut her eyes desperately trying to penetrate her dad's mind. She got another short flash of a young man laughing, kissing the girl's neck and toying with the chain on the locket. She wished she hadn't seen that! She remembered why she was down here in the first place and regained her footing. She reached the end of the forest and called for Snuffles loudly.

He bounded out, miserably soaked to the bone, looking mangy and thin with his shaggy coat stuck to him. Sophie looked at the pathetic animal and her anger disappeared. She look off her cloak, sat on the ground and pulled it over the two of them like a tent. She found her wand and muttered a quick spell. The cloak became water-repellent, and her wand began to spew hot air. Snuffles yelped happily, and pawed at the jar of food. Sophie laughed and opened it for him, feeding him piece by piece to avoid putting the food on the ground, which would have meant a meal of mud-coated everything. Soon he had finished, licked the jar clean (and Sophie's face) and curled up on her knees. Her wand was still producing hot air, and the two of them were nearly dry. She moved to leave. He protested, yelping at her.

"I have to go, they'll kill me if they find me wandering the grounds in this weather after sundown," She argued to him. "Not that the sun ever rose today with this storm," She made a face. "I have to go. You can stay here, under the cloak. You won't get wet. But I need by wand."

He picked it up in his teeth and gave it to her. She grinned.

"Did I ever tell you, you're one smart dog?"

He barked, then bounded next to her, sending a lick to her cheek, and then playing with her locket with his tongue. She pulled away, putting a hand over it.

"What d'you think you're doing exactly? Don't try to eat my birthday present!" He barked happily, and staring into his huge blue eyes, Sophie could have sworn she heard "happy birthday". She shook her head. _Don't be stupid, dogs can't speak._

* * *

When Sophie returned to Gryffindor Tower, soaked and miserably looking, most everyone had gone to bed. The common room was littered with a few fifth years with books piled high around them, scribbling desperately. Sophie took a long hot shower and climbed into her warm bed, drawing the curtains. Vieara snored lightly next to her.

"Lumos," she whispered, digging under her pillow. The package was small and rectangular. She unwrapped it eagerly. It was a little book called _Mind Games: The Art of Legilimancy and its Many Uses._ Sophie grinned, opening the book. It looked very old, and some of the pages had been chewed on by some rodent. There were notes in the margins written in small cramped writing here and there. Snape may never admit to it, but he had just sent a student a gift. Sophie almost laughed, excitedly paging through. She deserved an award, she was sure.

Her locket brushed her book and she looked at it for a moment, noticing a chip, a tiny dent in the back. She removed it from her neck, examining it. She opened the tiny hinges, realizing there might be a picture inside. Sure enough, a young couple grinned at her. Sirius looked about twenty and had his arm around her mum's neck. On that neck, the very same locket Sophie had in her hand sparkled. Her parents waved at her. She moved her finger over the old silver, feeling the fine engravings. Opposite the picture, a tiny emblem had been engraved. It was a family crest, it seemed. Sophie pointed the light toward it, making out a tiny B in the center. She gasped.

Her mum hadn't sent the locket. She would never give Sophie more presents than Vieara, much less something that belonged to Sirius. Maybe he hadn't cursed it, but Sophie realized Sirius Black _had_ sent her the locket after all. He knew where she was. He knew it was her birthday. And he hadn't killed her, he'd sent her a present. She smiled into her pillow as she drifted off to sleep.

* * *

"Professor, can you teach me more… subtle… Legilimency?" Sophie asked Snape, after she had successfully broken into his mind twice in a row. He raised his eyebrows, and she continued. "I mean, it would be quite rare, wouldn't it, to use it in the manner we've been practicing?"

He nodded. "The art is much more subtle that what we've been doing, that's true. It is just as much about interpretation as it is about the power to see another's mind."

"Can I learn that sir?"

He nodded again. "Let's start with the simplest form. Lying. First you shall learn to lie in a manner in which any Legilimens looking into your mind will not be able to find evidence against your lie. Tell me five statements, as many or as few of these as you wish can be lies. I shall try to tell you when you are lying and when you are not. When you've mastered this, we'll reverse."

Sophie nodded, screwing up her face, thinking.

"My sister and I are best friends," She said, staring into Snape's searching eyes. A memory of her awful fight with Vieara pushed to the front of her mind. She blinked, trying to shove it back.

"Liar," Snape hissed. She bit her lip.

"I'm a really good Quidditch player," she lied, hopefully in a convincing manner. He glared at her and she felt as if a hand was caressing her thoughts. She shook her head slightly to rid herself of the sensation, trying to keep her mind blank. Snape nodded.

"I love Charms," she said, trying not to ruin her lie by grimacing. She smiled at Snape innocently. A feeling of exasperation tried to rise but she stifled it before he got wind of it. He nodded again.

"I've finished my Potions essay," She continued confidently. She hadn't. She had been too busy reading her father's copy of Quidditch Throughout the Ages and her Legilimency book to start. The thought of those distracted her, and again Snape whispered.

"Liar," but he wore a faint half smile that might have resembled a sneer to anyone but Sophie. She grinned back.

"I'll do it tonight, I promise." She played with the end of her plait, thinking of her final statement.

She lowered her eyes. "I really wish I could meet my dad." She tried to keep her voice from quivering. _That was stupid,_ she scolded herself, _the last thing Snape wants to hear about is my dad._ But to her surprise, the Potions master didn't look angry the way he usually did when he mentioned Sirius Black.

"You're much better off without him, take that from someone who knew him. Sometimes you're better off alone, without a scumbag father." He too had lowered his gaze.

* * *

Sophie lay in bed that night, trying to break into Sirius Black's mind. It wasn't working. She just got another flash of Snuffles, hanging around with Hermione Granger's bowlegged orange cat. Distracted, she picked up her father's notebook and leafed through. Snape was making her brew Wolfsbane the next day. It was nearly full moon. She didn't need to ask to figure out who the potion was for. Lupin always looked worn around the full moon. She opened the notebook to the chapter entitled "Remus' Secret". She traced the words with her eyes lazily, not quite comprehending what she was reading.

_**Of course when we figured it out we couldn't just do nothing. One Marauder turns creature of the night, we all do. I just had to be the big creature, to keep the wild one in check. It took us forever, but we finally did it. We roamed the woods like no other student before or since. (Note: Stay away from where all the spiders congregate. It's not a barrel of laughs, I guarantee it.)**_

Sophie stopped suddenly and re-read the paragraph once, twice. Creature of the woods? Her father? Surely not, everyone would know if he'd become a werewolf. But what if he hadn't? What if he'd become an animal? A creature of the night. A big one.

"Snuffles!" Sophie whispered, shoving the book aside. Dumbledore said the reason she could do Legilimency without meaning to was empathy, love. She'd thought all those visions of Snuffles were mistakes. But what if…

She shook her head. No way. Sirius Black wasn't Snuffles. He was a convicted, escaped murderer. Sophie slipped her thumb into her mouth and started chewing at the nail. Snuffles _was _oddly smart and obedient. And why had he shown up at Hogwarts if was just some town stray from Bulgaria? _But it can't be_, the rational side of her brain protested, _wizards don't just become dogs_. Or did they? She racked her mind. Animagi! Those were wizards who turned into animals! But… there were only been a handful. McGonagall turned into a cat, the Weasley twins had said that she always did that first day of third year!

She had to see Snuffles. Maybe she was crazy, but that dog had always been too oddly sympathetic and understanding and _smart_. Sophie opened the curtains of her bed a crack and peeked out. Vieara was sprawled on her bed, an inkbottle dangerously tipping near her pillow, the sheets covered with parchment and her Transfiguration book. Everyone else had the curtains drawn around their beds. Sophie grinned at her sister's awkward pose, picked up the inkbottle and the Spell-Checking Quill and put them on the nightstand. She opened Vieara's trunk as quietly as she could and pulled out the Invisibility Cloak, wrapping it around her. If she was found wandering the grounds at midnight, her detention file in Filch's drawer would definitely give Vieara's a run for its money.

She made it all the way to the Great Hall before she met a teacher. Snape was just coming out of the dungeons. She froze in her place, waiting for him to pass. He cocked his head to one side and listened, but then continued up the staircase. She sighed in relief and waited five minutes before pushing the door open.

The night was damp and windy. She held the cloak tight and walked as fast as she could to the edge of the forest, where she had given Snuffles his dinner just hours earlier.

"Snuffles!" She whispered fiercely, afraid her voice would carry with the wind toward the castle. Nothing. She took another step into the forest. The faint sound of hooves reached her ears and she wrapped the cloak even tighter.

"Snuffles!" She said, louder. She heard a faint yelp and then the sound of paws hitting the dry crumbles leaves on the forest floor. He looked at her sleepily, turning his head to the side, watching her. _It's now or never,_ she thought.

"Are you Sirius Black?"


	13. Snuffles and Sirius

Snuffles stared at her for a long moment. _I'm insane, I just asked a dog a question and expected him to answer._ She shook her head as if to clear it. Suddenly everything that was wrong in her life hit her all at once and the tears welled up in her eyes, dripping down before she could stop them. Her nose filled up and she sniffed, trying to breathe. Snuffles walked toward her slowly, biting her hand and pulling it gently. He led her farther into the Forest. The night was loud around them, animals calling to each other, owls hooting. She felt goosepimples rise on her arms. The dog nuzzled her cloak, slipping under it. She sat next to him, trying to stop crying, but the tears kept pouring. Suddenly the space under the cloak became very small, and in place of the dog there sat an extremely dirty man.

At first Sophie didn't even realize it. She was rubbing her eyes, and when she opened them she yelped in fright.

"Shhh!" He took her hand, squeezing it gently in his. He wrapped his arms around her. He hadn't killed her. He'd hugged her. She laughed.

"Are you really…" She began.

He faced her, and she wished it wasn't so dark, she wished she could see his eyes.

"I really am. I'm your dad."

She pulled out her wand, and he froze. A terrified look came upon his face, and he whispered.

"Sophie-"

But she was whispering too. "Lumos."

A ball of light erupted from the end of her wand. Relief washed over him. His eyes were sunken, deep inside their sockets.

"What are you doing here? Did you- Are you- How?" She couldn't stop, suddenly everything that she'd always wanted to know came loose.

"I escaped. I didn't do it. I don't know what they told you, but I wasn't their Secret-Keeper, we switched, at the last second and we never told them." A twig snapped somewhere. He looked around nervously. "You have to believe me, I'd never-"

"I know," She said. "But who did tell?"

He stared at her. "You believe me?"

"Who was it?!" She asked, desperately.

He shook his head. "No. I can't involve you in this. Once it's over, we can-"

"What?! You have to tell me who it is, that's the only way they'll believe me!"

"No! You can't get involved in this, this is my battle, Sophie. I've been waiting twelve very long years for this, I can't mess it up now."

"You've been waiting for _this_ for twelve years? Do you have any idea what I've been waiting for?" Her temper flared, a temper she barely knew she had. Her cheeks felt hot. "I've been waiting to see you ever since you got out, not knowing whether you wanted to be my dad or to kill me! I've been waiting for a father for my whole life! I've been waiting to figure out if you're innocent or a traitor like mum and Vieara think so that I can get along with them again. Everyone hates me because I don't hate you, and you can't even tell me what makes you innocent?"

He wrapped his arms around her again, hugging her fiercely.

"Look, I don't want to involve you. The less you know the better. This will all be over soon, and we'll be a family again, I promise." His voice broke. She pulled free of the hug, trying to wipe off the tears running down her cheeks again. Her locket glinted in the light.

"Did you like it?" He asked, touching a finger to it.

She nodded, unable to produce a decent "yes".

"It was my grandmum's. When your mum saw it, she loved it, so I nicked it for her when I ran away from home." Sophie laughed.

"Thanks." The tears finally stopped coming, and she realized how exhausted she truly was. Sirius looked at the ground for a very long moment before he spoke.

"You mum, she thinks I'm a traitor then?"

Sophie dodged his gaze. "Well, most people do. She's really angry at you. But she won't really talk about it, so I don't know."

He coughed awkwardly. "Is she married now? Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

Sophie shook her head. "She dates sometimes, but no. Nothing… real." She remembered Professor Lupin and shoved the thought of him down. Sirius didn't need to know that her mum had been getting cozy with his old friend, definitely not right now, at least. "Look, I should be getting back, I have to brew Wolfsbane for Professor Snape tomorrow…"

"Snape?" Sirius looked as if Sophie had just stepped on his tail. "Wolfsbane?" A proud look crossed his face. Wolfsbane was a difficult potion, Sophie was only thirteen. "_Professor_ Snape?"

Sophie nodded, not meeting his eyes. "He's Potions Master here. He has been for a really long time."

Sirius didn't say anything but the look of hatred on his face spoke more than a phrase could. Sophie stood.

"I'll bring you supper tomorrow, after… at nine. D'you want anything specific?" She asked, worriedly examining his thin frame.

He grinned. "If you could get some treacle tart with the steak, I'll give you an extra lick on the cheek."

She laughed again. "Deal. Night, Dad."

Sirius choked at the word. It was the first time anyone had called him _Dad_. How long had he been waiting for this moment?

"G'night, Sophie. Oh and, don't give any hint that I'm any more than a loveable stray. And don't draw any attention to Snuffles either. I think maybe you shouldn't tell Vieara I'm here, not yet."

She nodded. This secret she was glad to keep.

* * *

The holidays approached rapidly and the school filled with the regular excited bustle. Everyone prepared to go home and enjoy the snowy landscape. Vieara couldn't wait to get home, even though Lupin would be spending the holidays with them. Sophie did not share the sentiment, however, and when she announced her intentions to stay at Hogwarts during the holiday, Vieara scoffed and refused to speak to her for days. At Sirius' urging, however, she finally agreed to go home as planned, and come back to school early.

On the morning they left for holiday, huge wet flakes fell from the sky. Their mother waited on the platform, giving them long hugs before offering one to Lupin. He grinned at her and they hugged for a long moment, until Vieara cleared her throat.

"Are we going home now?"

Elly laughed. "Yes. Let's go. Remus says he's arranged a Portkey for us."

Remus nodded and looked around. He walked over to an empty Coca-Cola bottle and motioned for them to gather around it. They touched it, everything lurched, and suddenly they were just outside the white, snow covered house. The girls bounded in, laughing, to light the fire. A delicious smell of Christmas filled their noses. It was good to be home.

The day before Christmas, Elly urged the girls outside with Lupin while she wrapped their gifts. She watched them tumbling about in the snow having an intense and laugh-filled snowball fight, laughing herself. She was glad to see that they seemed almost normal again. She eyed Vieara's crumpled robes lying on the kitchen chair and sighed, picking them up with the gifts. She deposited the packages under the tree and continued upstairs to the girls' room. She hung the robes in the wardrobe and was about to leave when a shriek made her turn toward the window. A burst of laughter followed it, but something caught her eye, keeping her gaze. On Sophie's bed lay a spiral-bound notebook. It looked old, and somehow oddly familiar.

"No!" Elly gasped. The notebook. It was the same notebook Sirius had spent hours writing in the summer of her pregnancy. The notebook he refused to let her see or touch. When he had disappeared that Halloween, it had disappeared with him, and she assumed, no, she _knew_, that he had been writing to Voldemort in that notebook, spying and sending information without arousing the suspicions of those in the Order. Why else would he hide it so diligently? Does an innocent man act like Sirius did that summer? Restless, short-tempered, even with her. Angry, scared. Of course he was scared, Voldemort would have killed him if he failed. But he hadn't failed. She had. She had failed to realize what was going on right under her own nose. And Lily and James had paid for her ignorance.

But how had Sophie gotten her hands on this notebook?

Elly picked it up cautiously. She opened it.

It was blank. Except for a scribble on the inside of the cover, there was no writing in it. But the scribble was Sirius' favorite doodle, a half moon/half Snitch round little ball hovering over a dark mass of squiggly trees. Below it he had written her own initials, E.V.I, scratched them out, and added his own.

"I command you to reveal yourself." She tapped the notebook with the tip of her wand. Writing slowly began to appear on the page in Sirius' thin slanted hand.

_Elly,_ it read, _I hope you've told the girls all of these things since I've been gone, but I thought I'd give them my side as well._

What? His side? She turned the page. A table of contents appeared. She shut the book, blinking fiercely.

He hasn't been communicating with the Dark Lord, he'd been writing to his unborn daughters. Elly felt an enormous wave of guilt wash over her. The grief that she'd given him over that stupid notebook! Why couldn't he just _tell_ her? Stubborn Sirius Black. She shook her head. She felt faint.

All this time, she'd thought… Her notebook had played the starring role in convincing her that he was guilty all these years. It had made so much sense. But suddenly… She could feel a tiny seed of doubt plant under her layers of denial and it terrified her. He couldn't possibly be innocent, she tried to convince herself. But the horrid possibility didn't stop leaking into her mind.

* * *

The year slid by quickly for Sophie, who was occupied not with friends and pranks like most second-years, but with Legilimancy lessons, extra Potions, and night-time visits to Snuffles. Hidden deep in the Forbidden Forest, she and Sirius would curl up under her cloak, her wand warming them as he told her tales of his school days and she offered stories about her and her sister growing up. The one subject he adamantly avoided was the night of Halloween twelve long years ago.

By June Sophie had lost all hope of Sirius telling her anything. The most she could do was wait for him to do what he planned so that the ministry would acknowledge his innocence and they could finally be a family. He had promised to tell someone what had really happened if he hadn't done whatever it was he meant to do by the end of the school year. As exams drew near, Sophie began to worry about him.

The night of her last exam, Sophie and Vieara were awakened by Professor McGonagall and sleepily ushered into Dumbledore's office. The professor then left, leaving them alone with the headmaster who stared out into the night by the window.

"Tonight, you father was caught and the Kiss was almost performed on him by the dementors."

"Wha-" Vieara began, but Sophie cut her off.

"NO! He's innocent!"

"Yes," Dumbledore nodded. Vieara looked frozen in her spot. "He and three students have convinced me of that. However, there was not enough evidence to convince the Ministry not to perform the Kiss right away. And I'm afraid your father has not acted like an innocent man. However, I believe you deserve to know the truth."

"Where is he? Do they have him? Is he going back to Azkaban?!" Sophie kept shouting. Dumbledore shook his head.

"No, your father has _escaped_." A tiny, somber smile played upon his lips. "I have sent an owl to your mother. I've explained what he told me to her, and she has agreed to take him in."

Sophie gaped.

"I just thought that you ought to know. And since I happen to know you have both taken you last examinations, under the circumstances I believe it would be alright if you went home a little earlier than planned." The girls both nodded. Dumbledore tapped a silver instrument lying on his desk.

"Your trunks will be sent first thing tomorrow and you marks should arrive within a week. Have a good summer, girls!" He winked at them, and motioned for them to touch the instrument. They didn't have time to say thank you before the room lurched from under their feet and they landed in their very own kitchen.

Their mother looked up, a look of relief washed over her face. "It's you! Dumbledore told you, I take it?" She asked. They nodded.

Vieara looked around wildly. "Where is he?"

Elly shook her head. "He isn't here yet. He's coming by hippogriff, it'll take a few more hours at least. I didn't think Dumbledore would send you girls til morning. Go to bed, I'll wake you."

Sophie eagerly took the advice, heading to their room. She wanted to be nowhere near when Elly and Vieara learned that she'd been communicating with Sirius for months and hadn't told them a thing about it. She curled up in her bed and drifted off to sleep.

Vieara had no intention of going upstairs, however. She walked to the sink and filled two glasses with water, handing one to her mum. Then she went to the refrigerator and poked through, pulling out a pot of soup, which her mother warmed for her with a flick of her wand. She ate silently, nodding off nearly into her emptied bowl, until her mother insisted that they lay down on the sofas in the living room and get some rest.

It was a fitful sleep, and Elly cracked an eye open nearly every five minutes to make sure he hadn't arrived. Finally, in the wee hours of the morning, as the chickens began stirring in their coops, a soft knock came from the back door. Elly got up as quietly as she could, her feet padding on the cold tile floor. She cracked the door open and came face to face with an eye she never thought she'd see again.

She opened the door and they stared at each other for a long moment. He looked so much older, the laughter in his eyes was nearly gone. He was barely recognizable, let alone the boy she once knew and loved. He stared at her as if drinking her every feature in. Her once waist-length hair now just below her shoulders, her figure more womanly than girlish, and her eyes still a soft green. But the way she stood was so different, Sirius thought.

He glanced around nervously. "May I come in?"

"Of course," She jumped aside to offer him entrance. He was filthy. This robes were ragged and dirty, his hair disheveled and long. But he still made her breath catch in her throat. He caught her looking at his clothes and ran a hand over them as if to brush the dirt off, but then grinned.

"I bet you didn't think Prince Charming would gallop back on a hippogriff wearing nearly a year's worth of muck on his royal attire." He simply slipped the robe off, shoving them into the rubbish bin. He stood before her, chest bared. It was littered with blue tattoos, spanning over his ribs, nearly reaching his pants and shoulders. Two thick angry scars ran over his shoulder and on the right side of his ribs. This shocked her much more than the robes had. The fact that the man she'd touched and who's chest she'd memorized for hours was gone, that suddenly she knew nothing of his flesh, scared her more than anything she could remember. She held her hand out to touch him, and her watched her, expressionless.

Her fingers felt so cool and delicate over his skin. He'd forgotten what it was like to be touched, let alone by a woman. He let out a deep sigh, which made her hand retract. He grabbed it, and placed it over his heart. She was so close. He leaned in to kiss her.

She turned her head, to see Vieara staring at them at the doorway. He pulled back, then caught a glimpse of the girl. They stared at each other, startled. Sophie had said Vieara thought he was a traitor. Unlike Elly, whom he'd known before, this was someone who he'd never known, but who's opinion mattered more than nearly anything.

"Vieara, this is your dad," Elly finally broke the silence, hoping the glaringly obvious sentence would end the tense moment.

Vieara glared at her mother. "Well, obviously, mum. I'm not daft." Sirius laughed.

"Jesus, she looked just like you when we were in school and I tried to cheer you up with stupid jokes when you were mad at me." Vieara smiled almost against her will.

"So you're innocent then?" She asked pointlessly.

He nodded. "That I am. And I'm glad to finally meet you, Sophie's told me loads-"

"What?! Sophie?" Both Elly and Vieara stared at him, shocked.

"Um, right. I forgot. Well…" Elly had her hands on her hips and Vieara's rage was visibly building. "She um, figured out my disguise and confronted me about it. I told her I was innocent and we would talk when she brought me food. She didn't tell you, because I asked her not to. I didn't want anyone to find me before I got a chance to… Well anyway, it's not her fault."

Elly nodded, even though she didn't quite believe the part about Sophie not telling them because she'd promised him, but she let it go. After all, she'd been right all along. There was more to the story than nearly anyone realized, and it was Sophie who first suspected there might be a different version of events.

"You should go upstairs and take a shower. I've laid out some clothes for you. Vieara and I will make some breakfast. Sophie's sleeping." Elly was already pulling out some eggs.

"But-" Vieara began to protest.

"Later, we can talk later." Elly said in a stern voice that made Sirius grin. He headed upstairs, shaking his head at the incredible change in his school sweetheart, and how grown-up and opinionated his daughters were. He opened the door to what he assumed was the girls' room to take a peek at Sophie. But it was Elly's room. He remembered that it used to belong to her parents, and they used to sneak in and make use of the extremely comfortable bed. He grinned again, and opened another door. This room was large and divided in half. One side was strewn with rock posters of various wizard and Muggle bands, and the other with Quidditch players. Below the photos of musicians lay a curled up Sophie, her dark hair cascading down the side of the white bed. He sneaked in and kissed her forehead. She stirred, but didn't wake.

With another smile he headed toward the bathroom. Oh, how good a shower sounded right about now.

* * *

**Author's note: So, didja get what you wanted? LOL. More family drama coming right up. How did you like the reunions? Cheesy? Anyway, please review. I'm getting quite a few hits but very very poor reviews (except for my amazing, dedicated two reviewers, Ramzes and HappeeGoLuckee!!! love you guys:). So if you read it, drop me a line, even if it's short. I love knowing what you think.**


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